Class 

Book 

GopigM 

CQEXBIGHF DEPOSIT. 



PRESENT PERILS 

OF 

METHODISM 

BY 

THE REVEREND BISHOP 

THOMAS BENJAMIN NEELY, D. D., LL. D. 

h 

Author of 

"American Methodism — Its Divisions and Unification," "The Revised 
Ritual of 1916," "The Bishops and the Supervisional System," "The 
Governing Conference," "Doctrinal Standards of Methodism," "Parlia- 
mentary Practice," "South America," "The League the Nation's Dan- 
ger," "The Minister in the Itinerant System," "Juan Wesley," "La 
Predicacion," "The Evolution of Episcopacy and Organic Methodism,'* 
etc., etc. 



PHILADELPHIA 
E. A. YEAKEL, Agent 
METHODIST EPISCOPAL BOOK STORE 
1705 ARCH STREET 



Copyright. 1920; by 
BISHOP THOMAS BENJAMIN NEELY 



APR 24 1920 



©CI.A576215 



TO 

MR. JOHN W. SPARKS 

OF 

PHILADELPHIA 



A true lover and earnest supporter of his church 



PREFACE 



A Church like any other organization may 
have its periods of peril. The Church has pecu- 
liar perils in the present time, and it is the part 
of wisdom and affection to recognize them 
promptly and rush to its defense. One who has 
loved the Church and labored for it through long 
years must do so until the peril is past. 

This book is to point out the dangers and to 
rally some to meet them before it is too late. 

If possible, the first reading should be at a 
single sitting, for the situation requires instant 
attention. Later readings may be more leisurely. 

The principles herein contained extend into the 
future and should have a permanent interest. 

Thomas B. Neely. 



Philadelphia, Pa., March 24, 1920. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter 

I. Methodism and the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church 9 

II. Present Conditions in the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church 15 

III. Causes of Unfavorable Conditions 65 

IV. New Developments and New Dan- 

gers 88 

V. The Remedy 131 

VI. The General Conference 153 

VII. Finally 182 



CHAPTER I 



METHODISM AND THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH 

What is generally termed Methodism today is 
a generic word covering doctrines, church polity, 
and practical forms of Christian work, and a 
spirit easily recognized, even if it is not distinctly 
defined or easily described. 

Starting in the earlier part of the eighteenth 
century, in England, under the Wesleys and their 
co-adjutors, it quickly took its place as a special 
or peculiar force among the Christian agencies 
of the time and rapidly spread throughout Great 
Britain and a little lator into other parts of the 
world. 

At first it was a teaching, a method, and a 
spiritual power for the religious enlightenment, 
the conversion, and the character building of the 
people, but it gradually, and yet speedily, took 
a concrete and organic form. 

Wesley or his followers did not invent the 
name Methodist or Methodism, for they were 
suggested and applied in an unfriendly manner 
by those who had derided and were antagonistic 
to Wesley's evangelical movement. Neither did 
they desire these indicative titles, but because 
they got into popular use they adhered, and soon 
were honored by the people because of what Wes- 
ley's followers were and because of the wonder- 

(9) 



10 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



ful work they performed in the evangelization 
of the populace and the development of the re- 
ligious life of the masses, and also to some ex- 
tent, of the classes. 

So, in course of time, Methodism was acknowl- 
edged to be one of the greatest religious forces 
of the world. 

As the people accepting Wesley, with his teach- 
ings and practical methods, came together and 
were organized in London and other places, a 
new ecclesiasticism came into being and spread 
far and wide. This was an incarnation of Meth- 
odism. 

In Great Britain the organism was known by 
one name, and, as it appeared in various other 
countries it acquired varying local titles. 

That which was transplanted to and developed 
in the Atlantic section of North America, at its 
reorganization after the independence of the 
United States of America was recognized, became 
The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United 
States of America, or in America, the qualifying 
titles meaning the same. The country was 
America and the people were Americans even at 
that day, and so the new church in the new 
nation became The Methodist Episcopal Church 
in the United States of America. 

That was in 1784, and this original church has 
continued to the present time, still the leading 
church of its family, notwithstanding the fact 
that various bodies, under distinctive names have 
branched off from the original trunk, and sepa- 
rately have greatly flourished. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 11 



The Methodist Episcopal Church, as we say 
for short, and just as we say the United States, 
one of the younger ecclesiasticisms, rapidly 
spread over the country, and soon outstripped 
the older churches in numbers, proving its right 
to be, and by its work demonstrating that it was 
a legitimate church of Christ, and that it had a 
right as an equal among its sister churches. 

Methodism, under the form of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, has been a great force in the 
United States of America as well as in other 
parts of the world. 

It is a church among the churches, and, as it 
has its own ecclesiastical organization, and its 
own distinctive name, it is a denomination among 
the Christian denominations, and as a church 
among the churches, so as a denomination among 
the denominations it has its recognized rank. 

A denomination amid other denominations has 
its own distinct value, and may be a very posi- 
tive blessing because it is not just like the other 
denominations, but has its differences even to 
the extent of peculiarities. 

A denomination stands for something specific 
and distinct and has its reason for its being in 
its very differences from the other bodies. Every 
denomination that had a right to come into exis- 
tence had that right because of conditions and 
circumstances which called for opposition or 
rectification, and because it stood for and empha- 
sized some important doctrine, some important 
feature of ecclesiastical government, or some 
practical method. Thus Protestantism came into 



12 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



being because of its protest against Rome's eeele- 
siasticism and in support of the Bible and its 
right interpretation. In a similar way Method- 
ism was made necessary by irreligious and 
unspiritual conditions that existed, and the need 
for the correction of ecclesiastical errors, as well 
as by the need for new or different forms of op- 
eration. So Wesley's idea was to restore the 
essential ideas of the New Testament Church in 
doctrines and in matters of organization. So 
other branches of the Christian church have been 
formed for other but sufficient reasons and de- 
nominations have multiplied. 

Far from being an evil the several denomina- 
tions may be a very positive advantage. They 
meet the scientific idea of division of labor as 
the different bodies specialize more or less in 
their activities, and by their varying methods 
appeal to minds of different tastes. They stimu- 
late each other to greater or better efforts, and 
act as checks upon each other, and so are 
mutually corrective, and there are people for all 
of them. 

Some have held that there should be only one 
church, but so there is only one Church of Christ, 
and the several denominations are only branches 
or subdivisions of that one church. Some, how- 
ever, have suggested that there should be only 
one ecclesiastical government. That is what is 
called organic unity, but the church has had that 
and the church was never so despotic and cor- 
rupt as when it had a unified ecclesiasticism. 
The denominations do not need to try that experi- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 13 

ment again, for history tells what it was and 
utters an emphatic warning. Still one may say 
that Jesus prayed "That they may be one," but 
the reference was not to the denominations, as 
we know them, but to the disciples, and the one- 
ness was not an ecclesiastical unity, but "the 
unity of the Spirit" and "the unity of the faith," 
as the Apostle Paul says to the Ephesians. 

What is needed is the Christly spirit, mutual 
recognition, fraternal relations and a degree of 
general co-operation that will not interfere with 
their distinct organization, their self-government 
and their individual action. To destroy the 
denominations would be a disaster, and almost 
equally so would be an attempt to confuse them 
together so that the things that make them sepa- 
rate denominations would become less distinct 
and tend to become unseen. Even to blend them 
in practice as though there was no difference 
between them would be very faulty and unphilo- 
sophical. 

All this is illustrated, and has been demon- 
strated in the history of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. To the denominations generally it has 
been an example and an inspiration, and Meth- 
odist influence has modified the practical work- 
ings of other churches, and even modified the 
doctrinal teachings of other denominations, and 
many of these bodies would cheerfully concede 
their indebtedness. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church, which has 
grown to be a great body in numbers and 
resources, has had a great history and has done 



14 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 

a great work for the church and the world along 
the lines of ehurchly activity and moral reform. 

Its members may justly be proud of its 
achievements, and in these acts and their results 
the members can find the strongest reasons for 
loving, strengthening, and perpetuating it as a 
distinct body, without a break in the continuity 
and character of this historic church. 

Anything that would deprive Methodism of 
the essential elements that gave it its real suc- 
cess, or that would weaken these elements so 
that the Church would not have its old time 
power, or that would infuse counter ideas and 
forces that would impair or destroy the internal 
nature and spiritual nature of Methodism, would 
produce an incalculable disaster to Christendom 
and the world. 



CHAPTER II 



PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

The direct and indirect influences of the great 
war that closed in Ninteen Hundred and Eighteen 
have greatly affected the world generally, and 
may be said to have specially affected the United 
States of America. People have shown marked 
intellectual, political and ecclesiastical changes, 
but the fundamental change in America may be 
said to be intellectual and emotional. 

There has been a psychological change in the 
mentality of the American people which may be 
attributed largely to the strain of the war upon 
those who have been in the war and also upon 
those who have been sympathetically related to 
the war, and upon others by association. The 
change shows itself in a loss of calmness and 
self-possession, and an increase of nervousness 
and excitability with a weakening of the reason- 
ing processes. Frequently it amounts to hysteria, 
or, as a distinguished doctor has declared, to 
mania, and, altogether, it makes a bad time to 
have to settle any great question either in the 
State or the Church. Naturally we would expect 
the church to have its share of the prevailing 
conditions in the community, the country and 
the world. 



(15) 



16 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



We turn our attention to the church and ask 
what is the situation in this branch of the church 
of Christ. 

A general survey of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church will show that it has vast extent as it 
spreads far and wide over the United States of 
America and into many distant lands. It shows 
vigor of various kinds, and it has immense bulk, 
as the statistical reports reveal that it numbers 
over four millions of communicants in the entire 
Church, and about four millions in the United 
States of America. 

How accurate these statistics are is not abso- 
lutely certain, but they are at least as reliable 
as the returns from the other denominations. 
For practical purposes, however, it may be safe 
to strike out of our calculations at least a million 
as dead, missing, mythical or not-get-at-able, and 
probably the workable statistics of other relig- 
ious bodies are open to a similar practical revi- 
sion. 

Whatever may be said, it remains that the 
Methodist Episcopal Church is a great organi- 
zation and has done a great work. On its undis- 
puted record the world will concede that, and 
whatever some may think as to the uncertainties 
of the future, the past is secure. 

That at the present time it is an immense 
ecclesiasticism with many mighty forces must 
also be admitted. Specifically, in proof of the 
effectiveness of the church at this moment may 
be cited its great financial appeals and their 
manifest success. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 17 



Its church building operations are numerous 
and impressive. Its educational institutions are 
many and are found all over this country and in 
foreign lands and the highest authorities have 
pronounced most favorably as to their actual and 
comparative value. Its benevolent institutions 
such as hospitals, orphanages and homes for the 
aged and infirm represent much money and most 
excellent results. These and many other things 
stand strongly to the credit of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, but if these things were all, 
and the body handled all the money in all the 
banks in the United States these things would 
not be sufficient to prove that the church was all 
it should be as a church, and that it was without 
any weakness, or that it was surrounded by no 
danger that should cause anxiety. 

In the Methodist Episcopal Church in very 
recent years there has been very great financial 
giving. For the Conference claimants there was 
a "drive" for some twenty or more millions, but, 
before that was quite completed, there was a 
"drive" for the educational institutions which 
brought in thirty-five millions of dollars. 

Right on that came a drive for the "Cen- 
tenary," which was the centenary of the organi- 
zation of the Missionary Society of the church 
in 1819, and this resulted in a subscription of 
one hundred and twelve to one hundred and fif- 
teen millions of dollars, an unequalled financial 
achievement among the denominations. 

The success of the centenary Missionary move- 
ment was most marked as a financial effort, but 
2 



18 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



possibly the church should be cautious in pro- 
nouncing as to the degree of success for the 
denomination as a whole and for the years to 
come. It is too early to say, and, probably, we 
shall not be able to tell, for some years, just how 
much of a success it has been, and really will be 
in the long run for the whole church in all of its 
departments. 

Even at the present the total amount that will 
actually be received cannot be told, but of course 
the millions that come in can do very much for 
the various home and foreign mission fields, and 
the effort may be an uplift, and may establish a 
new and higher standard of giving, at least with 
many. 

But per contra, as the old bookkeepers and 
the logicians used to say, on the contrary, on the 
other side, some things may have to be placed, 
and then deducted to ascertain the net gain. 

From the strain there may be a possible reac- 
tion. Such an intense effort and such an intense 
condition as was produced is likely to cause a 
reaction, and, especially, as the tension goes on 
for five years, and perhaps longer. 

All stimulants have their reaction, and this 
may be no exception. With the repeated and 
continued financial pressure during a series of 
years there is an increased possibility of a reac- 
tion which may require a very considerable 
reduction in the net gain. 

Then other things are to be calculated. There 
must be calculated the effect of taking large 
numbers of ministers from their legitimate work 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 19 



of the pastorate, and sending them out as pro- 
moters in a money-getting campaign among 
strangers and in distant fields, and the conse- 
quences of the breaking up of their ministerial 
habits of study and work. We do not state what 
number was thus taken from the pastorate, but 
it must have been quite large. 

In addition there must be calculated the loss 
through the disturbance of the charges from 
which these pastors were taken, for the disar- 
rangement and the break in the local church and 
its activities must have cost very much to the 
denomination at large. 

Further there must be calculated the injury to 
these ministers taken from the routine and regu- 
lar work of the charges and sent out to be semi- 
official rovers or given an entirely different task. 
The break in their habits, and the taste of 
officialism, may in many cases be destructive of 
love for, and contentment in, pastoral work, and 
the men may never be good pastors again. 

If there is much of that, no amount of money 
can compensate for the loss, for what the church 
most needs in the line of workers is an increase 
of good pastors, and, with probably hundreds of 
ministers out of the pastorate there must have 
been an immense loss to the churches in their 
essential work, and in this we do not count the 
millions of dollars spent in salaries, and in other 
ways to get the great subscription. 

The centenary has given a remarkable sub- 
scription. That proves something but it does 
not prove everything that some may claim. 



20 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



It is a partial revelation of the resources of 
the church, and it shows what may be done by 
the use of certain methods of system and pres- 
sure, with the expenditure of millions to get other 
millions of dollars and the employment of pro- 
fessional promoters or those who have been 
trained elsewhere in conducting money-drives. 

It was fortunate that the war ceased before 
the drive was made, for otherwise it might not 
have succeeded, but the skill in management and 
the practically unlimited funds for propaganda 
did bring in the subscriptions. 

Nevertheless, with all that may, and should, 
be conceded, the success is not conclusive. 

The large subscription does not even prove 
that the people of the church are rich, or that 
the individual churches generally are in a good 
and easy financial condition. As a matter of 
fact the average church still struggles along 
financially, the average pastor has but a meagre 
support, and he finds it difficult to get small 
sums of money for minor activities. 

But there is something more important than 
money, and, while material success has its value, 
it may not be the best success. In a church it 
is not. 

Let us scrutinize the church more closely and 
see if it is what it ought to be and can be. 

What is its condition? In the first place, is it 
keeping up with its former proportionate net 
gain in membership? What do we find numeri- 
cally? 

It is a large body, but is it growing? Is it a 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 21 



big body that is slowing down and losing its 
power of growth? If a large body stops grow- 
ing what is the expectation? The cessation of 
growth is the beginning of decay, and the com- 
pletion of decay is death. 

It must be admitted that recently there have 
been losses in membership and the church has 
not maintained its former pace in numerical 
progress. This may not mean a permanent con- 
dition, but it assuredly calls for attention and 
careful examination. 

Men of science say that at certain short inter- 
vals every one should undergo a medical exami- 
nation as a precaution in order to be sure of 
health or to detect the first approach of disease. 
So the church should be subject to a thorough 
diagnosis, not necessarily to cause undue alarm, 
but to ensure its preservation. 

At the present time Methodism here and in 
other lands is not gaining but is losing numeri- 
cally, and the facts should be widely known and 
looked at squarely, as the physician studies the 
symptoms of his patient. 

Consider certain instances by way of illustra- 
tion. 

Turning to Methodism in Great Britain it will 
be noticed that there is a decline in the Wesleyan 
Methodist Church. This is not simply because 
of the great war, and it is not merely for the pres- 
ent period. Indeed, for a long series of years 
the membership has been steadily diminishing 
from year to year. It is said that for thirteen 
years in succession this church has lost from 



22 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



three to six or seven thousand a year, making a 
loss of at least fifty thousand in these years from 
a body of about five hundred thousand. 

This is partly due to emigration to the British 
colonies or other dependencies and to the United 
States of America, but many attribute this ap- 
parent decay to a general and growing acceptance 
in recent years of German Biblical criticism of 
the destructive kind, and that is what many 
British Wesleyans think and say. 

In the Methodist Episcopal Church from time 
to time there have been of late disappointing 
increases and depressing decreases. The disap- 
pointing increases have been because they were 
so small in view of the agencies at command, and 
depressing decreases because there were no 
increases but losses, where in the nature of things 
large increases were to be expected. Thus in 
some of the largest conferences, having hundreds 
of ministers with well equipped churches, year 
after year the annual balance showed a net loss. 

Considering the denomination as a whole there 
have been repeated returns that were food for 
reflection. The Methodist Year Book for 1919, 
giving the returns for 1918, puts the total mem- 
bership of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
the world at 4,241,403, a net increase of only 
30,031, but the increases were not in the United 
States of America but in the foreign missions, 
and the net loss in the United States was over 
8,000, which was not an overwhelming indorse- 
ment of the new area method of the episcopacy, 
or of certain other modern innovations. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



23 



In the Methodist Year Book for 1920, giving 
the returns for the previous year, the losses in 
membership were immensely greater. In the 
whole church the total net loss was 55,881, and 
the number would have been much greater had 
it not been for gains in the foreign mission fields, 
though one foreign field, namely, Southern Asia, 
had a net loss of 1,617, a territory which had 
been having large gains. 

All the "episcopal areas" in the United States 
had decreases excepting three, and of these three 
two were in the colored sections of Atlanta and 
New Orleans. The third was the great Chicago 
area, with its hundreds of preachers and churches, 
which saved itself by reporting an increase of 211. 

Again the losses do not furnish a specially 
strong argument for the modern "area-episco- 
pacy." It is also to be noted that the losses 
occur in the year of the great centenary financial 
"drive." 

These losses are not to be accounted for by 
the war entirely or in any great part. The sol- 
diers and sailors who went into the war were not 
stricken from the church membership or the Sun- 
day School rolls. They were reverently and 
lovingly carried forward. 

Neither do the deaths in the army account for 
the losses, for the loss in membership is far above 
the proportionate loss in the army. The influenza 
epidemic will account for some of the losses, but 
the real explanation is that the church did not 
have grip enough. 

Incidentally it is to be noted that the Sunday- 



24 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



School membership reported in the 1919 Year 
Book was 4,461,229, and in the Year Book for 
1920 the total enrollment was 4,324,458, showing 
that the net loss for 1919 was 136,771. In the 
Year Book for 1918 the total enrollment was 
4,606,700, and for the next year, as in the Year 
Book for 1919, 4,461,229, showing a net loss for 
the year 1918 of 145,471, making a loss in the 
two successive years of 1918 and 1919 of 282,- 
242, or over a quarter of a million in the two 
years. 

Considering the membership statistics by 
quadrenniums the reports show that in the quad- 
rennium from 1912 to 1916 there was an increase 
of 490,958 in members, while from 1916 to 1920 
the increase was 139,958, a drop of 351,000 com- 
pared with the returns of the quadrennium end- 
ing in 1916, yet the last quadrennium was the 
period of certain intense activities in the denomi- 
nation. 

Naturally a pastor is given credit for an in- 
crease of membership, but, because of these losses 
which have been indicated, it does not follow that 
the pastors have been derelict, for there may 
have been conditions and adverse forces for 
which they were not responsible, and which 
handicapped them in their work, diminished their 
success or defeated them. 

The general conduct or condition of the denom- 
ination as a whole may have something to do 
with it, or local acts of the denomination, or spe- 
cial doings of the denomination may alienate 
some and prevent their winning. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 25 



If the church generally is at fault, then the 
fault may have been somewhere else than in the 
pastorate or in the particular local church. In- 
quiry should be instituted to ascertain what the 
fault is and where it is. 

Methodism at the beginning was a revival 
movement and the Methodist Episcopal Church 
from the beginning was a revival church. By 
the revival, people were gathered in and the 
church membership was built up. Therefore, we 
must ask: Has Methodism its old revival suc- 
cess? Is the Methodist Episcopal Church the 
revival Church it used to be? 

Methodism itself in the abstract is the same 
old spirit and where it has a fair chance ought 
to produce the same spiritual results. The ques- 
tion then seems to be if it is incarnated in an 
ecclesiastical organism, does it have a fair chance 
in the organism and amid its environments? Has 
the Church had the old time revival success? 
Has it had recently any kind of revival success 
of the old time or of any time? Are the revival 
services as largely attended as in former times? 
Do the sermons produce the same results as in 
former periods? Does the laity participate with 
the same spirit and efficiency? What are the 
reports that come from pastors and churches? 

On the contrary the reports that have been 
coming for years do not show the old time con- 
ditions. In short, they have been most discourag- 
ing. They do not show the aforetime ingather- 
ings or the deep religious impressions. Attempts 
at widespread revivals have been regarded as 



26 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



failures. Announced revival meetings have 
brought together few professedly unconverted 
persons, and the mass movements that have 
brought the main results have been largely lim- 
ited to Sunday School children who by the way 
should be gladly received. In this we speak of 
the efforts in the local churches by the pastors 
and such ordinary aid as they could obtain, 
while the actual or seeming successes on the other 
hand have been combination efforts under some 
noted and well advertised evangelists. Even in 
the latter it may be asked whether the Church 
has been able to retain the asserted converts. 

In view of propositions to have revival efforts 
within defined periods one may ask whether the 
church can have a revival to order and whether 
the church should attempt to designate the num- 
ber of converts to be received within a specified 
number of weeks? 

Can we have a revival to order? Certainly 
not as one might with confidence order a specific 
mechanical output and the delivery of a definite 
quantity of goods on a designated day. That can 
be calculated on the basis of mechanical certain- 
ties, but when one comes to deal with spiritual 
things he touches a multitude of contingencies 
growing out of the freedom of the human will, 
and the presence or absence and degree of mental 
and moral preparation. If these facts are not 
positively known, as generally may be, or must 
be the case, one cannot predict with certainty the 
spiritual outcome. 

If the question be asked: Can a genuine 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



27 



spiritual revival be made to order on a given day 
with a cold, indifferent, unconvinced and unbe- 
lieving church? The answer would be in the 
negative, because for a reliable revival there 
must be a degree of intellectual preparation 
which comes from instruction and individual 
thinking, and some degree of moral impression. 

If the people are entirely ignorant as to spirit- 
ual things, there is little or nothing to which the 
appeal can be made. So, if they are without any 
degree of moral preparation there is little or noth- 
ing on which to build. Then, unless there is an 
acceptance of certain great fundamental religious 
truths, there is no certain groundwork for an 
exhortation to make the great moral decision, 
and, if there is no personal realization of per- 
sonal sin, there can be no repentance and no basis 
for regeneration. 

If men do not believe in sin and its conse- 
quences, if they do not believe in Christ as the 
Saviour from sin and its penalty; and if they do 
not believe in the Supreme Being, his existence 
and intelligent rulership, there is lacking the in- 
tellectual condition which makes possible a hope- 
ful appeal for repentance, for faith in Christ as 
the Saviour, and for trust in God for pardon and 
purification. These are necessary preliminaries 
to a genuine and permanent revival, and it is to 
be feared that very many today are without this 
preparation, so that one could not safely predi- 
cate a revival among them in any very brief 
period of time. 

Matthew says of Jesus: "And he did not 



28 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



many mighty works there, because of their unbe- 
lief." (Matthew xiii, 58.) And so is it today 
where unbelief is established. Yet a revival 
effort may be made, because some do believe in 
God and in an atoning Saviour, and who not only 
know there is such a thing as sin, but also know 
that they themselves are sinners. But even with 
them a certain condition is necessary, for, though 
they have faith in all these things, they may 
not be ready to repent and trust, and they must 
have a preparation that will touch the heart as 
well as the head. 

Still all men have the moral sense and con- 
science, and these give the Christian hope and 
encouragement in his work. 

That such unprepared people may be best 
reached and regenerated through the means of a 
coldly calculated "drive" may be questioned and 
even denied. That the drive may be effective in 
securing contributions of money may be possible, 
but that it is the best way to secure the spiritual 
regeneration of human souls is far from certain. 
Indeed in spiritual things the organized, univer- 
sal and mechanical drive may be most disastrous. 
In a galvanized revival there may be movement, 
and there may be an ingathering of numbers 
without a genuine spiritual revival and without 
the right kind of permanent results. 

Much is said today about evangelism, and 
there is a right and noble use of the word, but 
where it means a cold and perfunctory calcula- 
tion and a movement of mechanical machinery 
it is not the ideal thing. Some talk about evan- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 29 



gelism as though it were a new discovery, one 
of the modern improvements, but in the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church evangelistic work is 
neither a new phrase or a new fact. Methodism 
has always been evangelical and evangelistic. 

Neither is evangelistic work limited to a parti- 
cular class of men. There are good and skilled 
evangelists who devote themselves to that form 
of work, but pastors also may be exceedingly 
successful in such activities. Indeed the faith- 
ful pastor is the good every-day and all-the- 
time evangelist on whom the Church must stead- 
ily depend. 

One thing, however, is more important than 
modern so-called evangelism and that thing is 
religion, and religion, existing, felt and mani- 
fested is more important than mechanical or 
scientific expedients employed in some types of 
work, and, when we say the great need is religion, 
we mean religion in the Church generally from 
the highest officials of the Church down to the 
humblest individual in the membership. 

It is understood that a mechanical revival can 
be "gotten up" by skillful managers who compre- 
hend the psychology of the crowd, even when the 
manipulators themselves have little or no religion 
in their souls. Of course, in such a case they 
must have impressed the subjects in their audi- 
ences at the time with the idea that they were 
genuinely religious, for otherwise the hearers 
would not have opened their hearts to their in- 
fluences. 

It must be admitted, however, that it is just 



30 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



possible that some who can do this mechanical 
work of so-called evangelism do not seem to have 
the mind that was in Jesus, and, instead of being 
truly religious do not seem to have even Chris- 
tian kindness, gentleness or a marked degree of 
common courtesy. Such persons may produce 
certain results for a time, but not all the time. 

Manifested and genuine religion creates the 
most favorable revival atmosphere, and, if all in 
the church demonstrated the possession of true 
religion, and their heart experiences were known 
by their fruits, it would seem that a real revival 
might be going on all the time. 

On the other hand, without that religious con- 
dition the clacking machinery, turning out and 
counting so many labelled converts a minute, 
may formally add members to the church and 
not add very much to its spiritual power, but 
genuine religion has life and force that are felt, 
and even with the simplest agencies and without 
sensational additions may give the best kind of 
potency to the church. 

It is one thing to get a million additional per- 
sons to join the church, but another thing to get 
a million genuine spiritual converts. Like the 
numbering of Israel in the olden time, there is 
a danger in the temptation to count numbers 
rather than to secure the right spiritual quality, 
and the minister who simply seeks to fill his 
"quota" of the large number has yielded to that 
temptation, and may not be doing the best work 
for his church. 

One might indeed imagine an ingathering of 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



31 



a million of some sort3 of people who would be 
a positive injury to the church, and the seeming 
success might prove to be a real disaster. So it 
might be possible for a pastor to take in his 
"quota" and not greatly benefit his church, but 
lay up trouble for other days. 

On the other hand, the most faithful pastor 
may find himself limited by adverse conditions 
in his community, conditions not created by him- 
self but by others, and, as it might be said he 
put forth a maximum of effort with only a mini- 
mum of success, and yet the small number he 
received might prove a permanent uplift to the 
church. 

The adverse conditions in the community 
might come from the spread of a destructive 
criticism which had weakened or destroyed the 
religious faith of the people. People in such a 
condition would be difficult to reach and the 
faithful preacher of the truth might for a time 
be measurably defeated. 

Every one, however, should seek to produce the 
right conditions and to secure the salvation of 
the largest possible number, and the right thing 
for every pastor is to try by every proper means 
to get as many converted as he can. 

Is there anything the matter with present-day 
Methodism? The check in its growth seems to 
indicate that something is the matter. Smaller 
attendance at the prayer meetings shows some- 
thing is the matter. The smaller average attend- 
ance of the membership and others at the preach- 
ing services in many of the Churches and the 



32 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



smaller congregations in the Church generally 
show something is the matter. The murmurs 
and indifference among the laity show that some- 
thing is wrong. The discomfort, disappointment, 
depression and unrest in the ministry show that 
there is something the matter, and particularly 
recent conventions of pastors to voice discontent 
and to present protests show at least that they 
think something is the matter. The complaints 
may not indicate clearly where the trouble lies, 
but they show there is something uncomfortable. 
Above everything else the diminution of spiritual 
and evangelistic efficiency shows that something 
is the matter, and the urgent appeal for a million 
additional members is a confession that some- 
thing is lacking. 

One may ask : Has there not been a destructive 
process going on in recent years within the 
Church itself? We expect antagonism to the 
church from without, but it is infinitely worse 
if there are destructive forces within the eccle- 
siastical organism. The human body may con- 
tinue to exist in spite of cold or heat or other 
forces exterior to itself, but if in the body there 
is cancer or other deadly disease the danger is 
immeasurably greater. 

In regard to the church we must inquire within. 
First, we may ask: Is the Methodist Episcopal 
Church organization of today the same as it was 
fifty or even twenty-five years ago? 

A minister recently said to a friend: "I visited 
the General Conference of 1884 and I tell you 
the Methodism of today is not the Methodism of 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



33 



that time." Some changes are to be expected in 
the way of development, but changes that show 
disease and disintegration are causes for alarm 
and reasons for seeking a prompt remedy. 

The internal changes have been many and 
vital. There have been changes in both usages 
and laws and in the organism itself, touching 
not only the organization and relation of the 
parts, but even the source and action of the life- 
supplying forces. 

As illustrative a few instances may be cited. 
Where, for example, is the Love Feast which used 
to be such an important factor in the life of the 
church? In many places it seems to have utterly 
passed away and hardly a memory lingers. Yet 
still it is in the law under the "Duties of the 
Pastor." (Book of Discipline, ffl82, §8.) What 
a great gathering it was once every three months 
at the Quarterly Meeting! What numbers! 
What profound religious interest! Having an 
exclusive attendance, with admission by a love 
feast ticket which was a proof of membership, it 
was looked forward to and back to as a great 
event, while the actual meeting was a spiritual 
uplift to the entire church. What has become of 
the Love Feast and what has become of the 
spirit which, pervading the membership, gave the 
gatherings their great power? 

So one may ask: What has become of the Class 
System? By the Class System something more 
is meant than the Class Meeting. The class was 
an organization for some time before the Class 
Meeting or meeting of the members of the class 

3 



34 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



became a usage. The class idea was a sub- 
division of the entire membership into small bod- 
ies each of which was under the oversight of one 
person who was called the leader, whose duty it 
was "to see each person in his class" (that is to 
say, each person belonging to the class) "once a 
week at least in order (1) to inquire how his soul 
prospers; (2) to advise, reprove, comfort or ex- 
hort, as occasion may require; (3) to receive 
what he is willing to give toward the relief of 
the Preachers, Church and poor." (Constitution, 
General Rules, Discipline, jJ28, §1.) 

The Class System was a very thorough method 
of supervision. It was the best human device 
for caring for the members down to the last man, 
woman and child. It saved the members to the 
church, and the class system today would in a 
short time preserve to the church hundreds of 
thousands of members, while the Class Meeting 
would develop leaders, prayer leaders, leaders of 
the singing, exhorters and preachers. Some 
churches have abandoned the class, where the 
leaders would have done the work for nothing, 
and have tried at great expense to invent cleri- 
cal systems to take its place, but they have never 
equalled the class system which still is a consti- 
tutional requirement which every charge is under 
obligation to carry out. Now it is hard to realize 
that very few of the men who now enter our 
ministry ever saw the full class system in opera- 
tion. The moral of all that is to restore the class 
system. 

What has become of the Leaders and Stewards' 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 35 

Meeting? In the early days it met once a week, 
among other things "To inform the minister of 
any that are sick or of any that walk disorderly 
and will not be reproved." It was and now is 
intended to be the minister's cabinet made up of 
his confidential advisers. Its work is largely 
supervisional and spiritual, and its work should 
never have been merged in an official board 
which charged with the temporalities is more or 
less secular. The minister needs his cabinet to 
advise and aid him in the spiritualities. It is 
his powerful right arm. 

What has become of the Presiding Elder and 
the Presiding Eldership? The name has gone 
and something has gone beside the name. The 
change of title from Presiding Elder to District 
Superintendent was a significant symptom and 
back of the change was a motive. Presiding 
Elder was a churchly title. Elder showed he 
belonged to the clergy and Presiding indicated 
his function, but District Superintendent, a title 
used in business industries, eliminated the 
churchly idea. It is suggestive of secularization. 
It is a breaking down of ecclesiastical dignity 
and is a substitution of a secular form used in 
the shop, on the road and in various secular pur- 
suits. To some it may seem a little thing, but 
the change was significant of a growing condition, 
and the effect has been most unhappy. When 
the church is conducted under secular ideas the 
character of the church is changed and its pecu- 
liar purpose and power must be diminished. 

There is a similar tendency in regard to the 



36 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



bishopric. It is partly seen in the disposition to 
drop the title bishop and use only Superinten- 
dent or General Superintendent. Of course, for 
certain technical reasons, as for example, in dis- 
tinguishing between bishops of the general church 
and bishops who as such are limited to a foreign 
jurisdiction, it may be necessary to use the title 
General Superintendent, but the true and 
churchly title is bishop, while the nature of his 
executive work is a general superintendency. 
These things are not trifling, though the changes 
trifle with matters of great moment. 

What has become of the church-wide episco- 
pate called the General Superintendency? Well, 
it is in the constitution of the church. The con- 
stitution says: "The General Conference shall 
not change or alter any part or rule of our gov- 
ernment so as to do away with Episcopacy, nor 
destroy the plan of our itinerant General Superin- 
tendency," that is the plan as it was in 1808, 
and confirmed in the revised constitution of 1900. 
(Constitution, Article X, §3, Discipline, 1j46.) 

This restriction is not merely as to changing 
the reading of this article, but as to changing 
anything anywhere that would alter the inten- 
tion of this article of the constitution, so as to 
destroy the episcopacy of the Church, or to 
change the plan of the episcopacy as might be 
by changing an old law, making a new law, or 
changing a usage, especially one that is equiva- 
lent to a rule or established practice. This, it 
has been decided, prevents both an elective pre- 
siding eldership and a districted episcopacy. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 37 



The attempted districting of the Bishops is 
another marked change within the last few years. 
That it is unconstitutional must appear to those 
who know the history of the church and to those 
who know its constitution. 

It seems absurd to recognize the bishop as a 
general superintendent of the whole church, and 
then to try to limit him and his jurisdiction to 
a small section of the Church. 

Not only is the districting not in harmony with 
the organic principles of the denomination, and 
contrary to its constitution, but it abounds in 
practical and injurious difficulties. It reduces 
the Bishop of the region to the proportions of a 
big presiding elder, and burdens him with impos- 
sible details, while at the same time it tends to 
fade the presiding elder or district superintendent 
out of power, out of sight and ultimately out of 
existence. Further, such localization restricts the 
bishop's independence, permits and encourages 
the charge of favoritism and government by 
individuals, coteries and local influences, and 
may bring very unjust criticism upon the bishop 
even to the point of suggesting that he creates a 
coterie for his own personal ends. 

It may be said that with the area system, as 
it may be called, "things are being done," but 
some things are not being done, and all desirable 
things are not being done. It may be admitted 
that under the area system many good things 
have been done, and are being done, but many 
good things were done under the old general 
superintendency, when each bishop was for the 



38 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



whole church, and the presiding elder had a 
chance to give local guidance, so that, if there 
was not a bishop physically present within a 
thousand miles, there could be with the presid- 
ing eldership a most effective local supervision. 

With the general superintendency, as we may 
term it, the local episcopal interest could be 
maintained by the bishop residing nearby, not 
always making or controlling the appointments, 
but watching over the general spiritual and mate- 
rial movements as he has opportunity, and the 
associated presiding eldership doing so continu- 
ously. 

The bishops are the general overseers, each 
bishop so far as possible knowing the whole 
church, while the presiding elders are the local 
supervisors probably knowing the locality for a 
longer time and more thoroughly than the par- 
ticular bishop. The bishops are the general 
superintendents while the presiding elders are the 
local superintendents. 

The presidency of the Annual Conferences and 
the making of the ministerial appointments is 
another matter, and that should itinerate among 
the bishops generally and the presiding bishop 
in making the appointments should be perfectly 
free, as free as the resident or any other bishop, 
performing the duty according to his own con- 
science and the best light he can get from all 
available sources. 

As a matter of fact there is no law for the area 
episcopacy. It is not in but against the consti- 
tution, it is not a law but merely a suggestion 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 39 

or recommendation and can be dropped at any 
moment, and the church should be under the 
constitutional episcopacy. 

The most important man in the church system 
is the preacher-pastor. He preaches the Gospel, 
ministers the sacraments and shepherds the flock. 
He is the last man the church can afford to lose, 
and if a church lost all its pastors its work could 
not be carried on and the church would be in 
danger of extinction. Any other man could be 
spared better than the pastor. 

The preacher-pastor, therefore, needs protec- 
tion, encouragement and support. He is the man 
who is expected to furnish the congregation with 
information and the best pulpit ability, and for 
this he needs time for study, and money to buy 
books, papers and magazines that he may have 
the material for study and stimulus for his 
mentality, and be able not only to keep abreast, 
but ahead, of the times. He is the head of the 
church and must think for and lead it, and for 
this work he should have hearty co-operation. 
His sympathies are drawn out and taxed, for he 
must be interested in his people and feel their 
woes, and in turn sympathy should be given him 
or he will break under the strain. 

To give his mind a fair chance he should be 
care-free, and yet the average minister receives a 
very inadequate financial support, and the very 
people he is caring for often add greatly to his 
anxiety. 

The preacher-pastor as a young man enters 
upon his ministerial life in high spirits, but after 



40 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



meeting difficulty after difficulty, not from with- 
out but from within his church, after a while his 
spirits droop, and, it may be the lost spirit affects 
his preaching and depresses his work, and he is 
lost to the ministry. 

There must be some reason for the increasing 
difficulty in securing young men for the ministry 
and in retaining men in the ministry. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church in other years 
almost boasted of its abundant supply of preach- 
ers, but it is not so now, and it is said that 
investigation shows that it gains in ministers a 
little over 3 per cent, but loses 5 per cent, an- 
nually. Figure that out for a few years and one 
may see what a deficit there will be. More than 
that, notwithstanding the graduates from the 
church schools, it is stated that the conferences 
cannot get a sufficient number of properly pre- 
pared candidates and are compelled to take many 
below the standard. The rapidly growing num- 
ber of "supply charges " manned by local preach- 
ers proves the same condition. 

Men are not seeking the ministry of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church as freely as they once 
did, proportionately more are leaving, and many 
who continue are discontented. There must be 
some reason for these things? What is the rea- 
son? 

The pastor of a Methodist Episcopal Church 
once felt a peculiar and manly independence 
which grew out of the very nature of the itiner- 
ant ministry and the appointive system. He 
believed all he had to do was to follow the law 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 41 



and faithfully discharge his duty, and his presid- 
ing elder and bishop, aided by a good providence, 
would see to it that he was duly recognized and 
get the right appointment, but now he is forced 
to think that other forces are at work, and in 
such a way that confidence has been weakened, 
uncertainty fills his soul and he does not look 
forward with the same peace-giving assurance. 

There has been a tendency to strip the pastor 
of powers and prerogatives which are necessary 
for his efficient headship in the local church, and 
he feels his position as a leader of the people has 
been weakened. 

The pastor, for example, once appointed the 
Class Leaders, and rightly so because they were 
his assistant pastors, and that appointment alone 
made them full officials and carried them as full 
members into the Quarterly Conference. It still 
is his duty "to appoint the Class Leaders," etc. 
(Discipline, 1fl82, §2) , but that does not put the 
leader into the Quarterly Conference any longer, 
for now the leader must be approved by the 
Quarterly Conference "for membership therein" 
(If 104) and hence the question "What Class 
Leaders are approved as members of the Quar- 
terly Conference (fll08, §6) ?" So that the Quar- 
terly Conference can keep out of that body any 
and every class leader the pastor appoints, 
though the Quarterly Conference is intended to 
be the assembled officiery of the charge. 

The pastor has always been recognized as the 
proper person to nominate the Stewards, who so 
to speak are his legal advisers, and the law still 



42 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



says: "The Pastor shall have the right to nomi- 
nate the Stewards'' (Discipline, 1J316) , but a few 
years ago an attempt was made in a General 
Conference to deprive him of this ancient right, 
but the writer, by explaining the nature of the 
office of a steward, was able to defeat the move- 
ment. 

These and other things of the same character 
must have had a deleterious effect upon a self- 
respecting pastorate, and taken together with 
other things which have been accumulating 
through the course of years help to account for 
dissatisfaction on the part of the clergy. 

Another phase of the same thing has been a 
movement which has tended to destroy the dis- 
tinction between the clergy and the laity. That 
distinction has been overemphasized in some of 
the older ecclesiasticisms but never in Method- 
ism. There is, however, a distinction between 
the minister and the layman which should be 
maintained for the benefit of both classes and 
for the perpetuity of a true church. 

The proposition to introduce the laity into the 
Annual Conference was akin to various other 
changes that were calculated to diminish the 
power and independence of the pastors, though 
those who viewed it from another angle may 
have regarded it merely as a method for strength- 
ening the laity. In the outcome both views 
amount to the same thing. 

The Annual Conference has always been a 
ministerial body and its only function is clerical, 
and to destroy it as a clerical body by admitting 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 43 



laymen into the Annual Conference is to take 
from the Methodist Episcopal pastor his last 
foothold. 

The laity do not need it, for they have equal 
numbers in the General Conference, they have 
the exclusive membership in the Lay Electoral 
Conference, and, likewise, they have the entire 
membership in the Lay Association which meets 
every year. 

The laity as it is have equal power in the 
law-making body of the church and equal power 
in amending the constitution, as they have equal 
power in the election of bishops and other gen- 
eral officers. No bishop can be elected without 
them, no law can be made without them and no 
change in the constitution can be made without 
them. 

The laymen have power at the top and the 
bottom of the system. They have equal power 
in the General Conference, and at the bottom 
they have absolute power in determining who 
may be in the ministry. The minister comes up 
from the laity and no man can go up into the 
ministry unless the laity permits him, so that 
every minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
is the choice of the laity, and before there were 
lay delegates in the General Conference the min- 
isters were the representatives of the laymen, for 
they were from the laity and chosen by the laity, 
with the full understanding that it would be their 
function to represent the whole church in the 
body that would make "rules and regulations" 
for the entire church. So the laity was repre- 



44 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



sented in the General Conference before laymen 
sat in that body. 

As the laymen in that fundamental way make 
the ministers they make the Annual Conferences, 
for they make the men who compose those bodies, 
and the men they selected to be ministers are 
their chosen representatives in the Annual Con- 
ference. 

The laity do not need to be in the Annual 
Conference for their selected men are there, and 
the laity in the Methodist Episcopal Church are 
practically all powerful now. No laity in any 
Protestant church which has a connectional gov- 
ernment has the power possessed by the laity in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and it may, 
therefore, claim to be the most democratic of all 
the Protestant churches having a connectional 
system. Laymen do not need to be in the Annual 
Conference for it is composed of men they have 
named. 

Further, there is nothing in the Annual Con- 
ference for laymen to do. It is a purely clerical 
body. It makes no law and therefore does not 
control the laity. Reduced to its essential terms 
the Annual Conference convenes for three things 
and three things only. First, the ministers meet 
to present the reports of their church work for 
the year; second, to submit their characters to 
the scrutiny and formal decision of their peers; 
and third, to receive their annual appointment 
to their respective charges and go where they 
are sent. 

In all this there is nothing for laymen to do. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 45 



A layman would not be willing to report his 
business for the year just ended; he would not 
permit the conference to examine into and pass 
upon his character; and he would not permit the 
bishop, or the cabinet to determine where he 
should, or must, conduct his business for the year 
after the adjournment of the conference session. 
It is not the place for a layman. There is noth- 
ing for him to do. 

Then he would not come in on a real equality 
for he would not be a responsible member strictly 
amenable to the Annual Conference, and as a 
matter of fact it would not be an equal repre- 
sentation for with one layman for a pastoral 
charge there would be more laymen in the An- 
nual Conference than ministers because there are 
more charges including supply places and vacan- 
cies than there are ministers in the conference. 

The laity do not need to be in the Annual 
Conference and the Annual Conference does not 
need the laity. The laymen can speak in the 
General Conferences, the Lay Electoral Confer- 
ences and in the Lay Associations, and in the 
latter two they have exclusive control. The min- 
isters in the Annual Conferences are competent 
to make their reports and scrutinize each other, 
and to transact any collateral business, for they 
were not only laymen themselves but they have 
been specially educated and trained for their 
duties in connection with the Annual Conference. 

Then there are some pertinent reasons of a 
practical character which a business layman 
would immediately appreciate. The introduction 



46 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



of these laymen would more than double the size 
of the Annual Conferences and give them an 
unwieldy bulk. An Annual Conference of three 
hundred members would have over six hundred, 
one of three hundred and sixty would have from 
seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred or 
more. This would mean greatly increased ex- 
pense and the difficulty of entertainment would 
be oppressive, for it would not be easy to secure 
a church edifice sufficient to accommodate the 
conference and the people. 

Much that has been said about lay represen- 
tation in other denominations is far from accu- 
rate, and many of the comparative statements 
are very inaccurate. 

It is not true that everywhere else laymen sit 
with the clergy in equal numbers in every sort 
of a body. Of course they are not in the coun- 
cils of the Roman Catholic churches at all, and 
yet in that body are the most contented body in 
Christendom. There may be minor eruptions in 
which the priest is likely to have a part, but the 
laity of the Roman Church has no ambition to 
sit as equals in the conclave of the cardinals, or 
to elect the head of the church, or to share in 
making the papal appointments. Perhaps it 
shows that contentment does not come from 
enlargement of power. Certainly getting power 
does not ensure perfect contentment. 

Turning to Protestantism, much that has been 
said of the relationship of the laity to the clergy 
in certain bodies is not correct. Take the Pro- 
testant Episcopal Church, though it has its 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



47 



House of Lay and Clerical Deputies, the laity 
does not possess equal power with the clergy. 
The laity, and even the ordinary clergy, do not 
finally make the laws. The Protestant Episcopal 
Church has a clerical government and it is the 
House of Bishops, a purely clerical body that 
finally decides. It can initiate a law and it can 
defeat a law which has been proposed, so that 
the House of Bishops decides what shall and 
what shall not be a law. 

So the Presbyterian Church has been cited as 
a model with its lay power, but it has no such 
lay representation as the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, or as some want it to have. The latter 
church has a promiscuous lay representation so 
that any layman may be elected a delegate, but 
in the Presbyterian Church it is a class repre- 
sentation, and no unordained man sits in its Pres- 
bytery, its Synod or its General Assembly. 
Every member is an ordained elder, which is very 
different from what the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has, and what some wish to have. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church has a pecu- 
liar and extremely liberal lay representation, and 
the laity do not need to be in the Annual Con- 
ference which always has been and always should 
be a clerical body, for the Annual Conference 
can make no law to govern the laity and no eccle- 
siastical law to govern its own members, while 
the laity without the Annual Conferences make 
laws to govern the ministry, sitting as they do 
as equal delegates in the General Conference. The 
Annual Conference is not a law-making body and 



48 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



the laymen do not need to be in it. The laymen 
do not need such a lay representation, the min- 
isters do not need it. The Church does not need 
it. 

In view of certain facts, clearly seen by a close 
observer, it may be asked: Is there some evii 
spirit at work? Is there some evil influence 
seeking to sap its vitality and to destroy Meth- 
odism? Is there an evil spirit within the body 
ecclesiastic perverting, perturbing and pushing 
it toward the precipice of ruin? Then is there 
an evil influence outside the body seeking to 
exploit the denomination but not for the 
Church's good? And, finally, are the internal 
influence and the external influence working 
together to produce the same evil result? 

What do the losses in numbers mean? What 
does the diminution in power mean? What do 
the schemes to change the inner and outer life 
mean? We must answer these questions. We 
must consider the dangers that develop and the 
risks that are being taken. We must calculate 
the possibilities if certain conditions continue. 

Taking a survey of conditions in general 
Methodism may help us perceive possibilities in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. For example, 
glance at Wesleyanism in Great Britain. On the 
one hand regard the numerical shrinkage which 
has continued steadily for a series of years, and 
on the other hand notice the negotiations between 
Church of England authorities and the British 
Wesleyans. Observe the approaches on the part 
of the establishment and the consideration on the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 49 



part of the Wesleyans. While nothing very defi- 
nite has been done and no one can foretell the 
outcome yet the approaches are not without sig- 
nificance. The attempt may fail but it has gained 
attention. 

In Australia the Methodists voted some time 
ago to fuse with other churches, but the merger 
has not yet been consummated, and there seems 
to be a change of mind that may defeat the pro- 
ject, but the vote was cast. 

In Canada the Methodist Church of Canada 
has voted to combine with the Congregational- 
ists and the Presbyterians, but this union has not 
yet been effected, it is said because some of the 
Presbyterians are placing obstacles in the way. 
If this Canadian union goes through the Metho- 
dist Church of Canada will be obliterated though 
some of the Dominion Methodists seem not to 
realize that fact which should be apparent to all. 
On this subject, speaking to an enthusiastic 
young minister of Canadian Methodism, I said: 
Do you realize that if you make this combination 
with other denominations you will never have 
another Ecumenical Methodist Conference in 
Canada? He had never realized that, but seemed 
to think that he could have his old church aban- 
doned, and submerged in this union, and yet the 
Methodist Church would still survive. 

Something may yet prevent these burials of 
Methodism, but one cannot help wondering why 
these followers of Wesley were so willing to give 
up their Methodism and the existence of their 
ecclesiastical organizations. Possibly their nerves 

4 



50 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



were affected by the faddist cry for organic unity 
which reiterated in their ears so often that it got 
on their nerves, and, exhausted, they succumbed. 
In such cases a tonic should be administered. 

But there is a serious side to it. We do not 
say that all these things will occur, but suppose 
Wesleyanism disappears in Great Britain, in 
Australia, and in Canada, will it then be found 
only in the United States of America? Then 
would not the same or similar forces sooner or 
later eliminate it from America? 

There is at least enough in the known situation 
to cause us to ask: Are there any destructive 
forces at work in the Methodist Episcopal Church 
in the United States of America? In other words: 
Are there fusive, diffusive and destructive forces 
that would submerge this great church and cause 
its destruction?" 

Analyze many of the so-called co-operative 
movements. What do they mean? What is their 
logical tendency? Take their local application 
in instances to Methodist Episcopal churches 
where our church is asked to blend with a con- 
gregation of a different faith, and even to pass its 
property over to this un-Methodistic blend, 
which, of course, it has no legal right to do. 
There on a small scale is an illustration of how 
a certain sort of co-operation may blend a great 
but innocent denomination out of existence. The 
arguments may be very specious and the advo- 
cate may have the air of great piety, and so 
may deceive the very elect, but all the same there 
is death in the process. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 51 



The forces are at work though they may not 
be suspected or recognized by some innocent par- 
ticipants, and it is necessary that some who are 
not easily deceived shall now and then go on a 
tour of inspection and report without prejudice. 

It is said that a few years ago the Methodist 
Episcopal Church had ten colleges in China, but 
not long ago we were told that all these colleges 
had been unionized and placed under the joint 
or common control of different denominations, 
and, the Methodist Episcopal Church has become 
merely a joint stockholder, and a minority stock- 
holder at that, for it is only one among a num- 
ber and has lost independent control. 

This also, it is said, includes theological schools, 
which would seem to make for a modified or 
mixed theology, even if only by the common con- 
tact, to say nothing of direct doctrinal instruc- 
tion. 

It would be interesting to know whether the 
total students are counted or reported by all 
the denominations in the union, and the aggre- 
gate reported as though the scholars of each, and 
so be counted over and over. It may be that each 
church reports only its own, but it would be well 
to know. 

Just as we are inquiring as to whether there 
are any injurious forces acting upon the denomi- 
nation there comes a document which claims to 
be a "Plan of Unification" of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in the United States of Amer- 
ica and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 

It is a most astonishing document, a most 



52 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



destructive instrument, and has hidden in it the 
strongest kind of ecclesiastical explosives. Plainly 
it is not a "plan of unification," but a plan of 
extinction. If the church ever forgets itself and 
its duty so far as to adopt it, it will be the end 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church as one may 
easily see. 

It destroys the denominational name; it de- 
stroys the constitution the church has long had, 
it so radically changes the established episcopacy 
that it destroys the constitutional episcopacy, and 
it destroys the unity and nation-wide character 
of the church, as it breaks it up into territorial 
and self-governing divisions which restore and 
perpetuate the sectionalism that came very near 
disrupting the American Union. 

The proposed plan destroys the historic name 
of the denomination, the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the United States of America and so 
destroys the designation of the nature of the 
body, a church in and co-extensive with the 
nation, with a uniform ecclesiastical government 
wherever the church goes, and the result would 
be the extinction of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. The name no longer would be heard 
and the thing for which that name has stood 
through the generations would perish and its 
memory would pass away. Instead it would be 
a sectionalized, non-adhesive and nondescript, 
conglomerate, with dissolution decreed in varying 
laws and differing types of bishops in possibly 
rival, jealous and antagonistic sectional divisions. 
There would not be the name The Methodist 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 53 



Episcopal Church in the United States of Amer- 
ica and there would be the annihilation of that 
which the name implied. 

There is something peculiar about this proposi- 
tion to give the combined churches a very differ- 
ent title, namely, "The Methodist Church.' , Why 
should two bodies, each a Methodist Episcopal 
Church, drop the title they have had from their 
beginning and abandon their history as Meth- 
odist Episcopal Churches by calling the combi- 
nation The Methodist Church? What good rea- 
son is there for such a change and abandonment? 
It is said that was done in the hope of winning 
a little handful of Methodistic people who have 
not carried the name Episcopal. If that is the 
case, then the small gain, even if secured, will 
not compensate for the sacrifice. Further, the 
change is short-sighted, because, though the name 
Episcopal is to disappear from the title, it is pro- 
posed that the combination will continue some 
form of episcopacy, which is the very thing to 
which the people sought object, so that changing 
the name but carrying the thing, nullifies the hope 
that the parties desired will walk into even that 
kind of an episcopal arrangement. On the other 
hand, the change of title will offend persons in 
the present churches, and it is possible that many 
thousands will regard the action as an oppor- 
tunity to abandon the churches which have thus 
abandoned them, and go out into other denomi- 
nations, particularly the Protestant Episcopal, 
the Reformed Episcopal and the Presbyterian 
churches. We do not prophesy, but heavy losses 



54 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



are within the probabilities. We will see it if the 
proposition ever prevails. 

Furthermore, this very name "The Methodist 
Church'' has been pre-empted by another body, 
and it would not be very pleasant to be sued for 
an infringement of an ecclesiastical trade-mark, 
or to be twitted for wearing a second-hand title. 

It always raises a question when a man wants 
to change his family name. It is asked: What 
is he ashamed of? What is against the family? 
Naturally, a man of honor respects the name of 
his family. So should a church. 

Wesley did not give the name of Methodist 
to his followers. Others gave it in derision, and, 
so, Wesley alluded to them as "The people called 
Methodists." 

After Bishop Thomas Coke came over as Wes- 
ley's messenger to help in the reorganization of 
his followers in America, he presented Wesley's 
Circular Letter in which the founder said: "As 
our American brethren are now totally disen- 
tangled both from the State and from the English 
hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again either 
with the one or the other. They are now at full 
liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the 
primitive Church." They did not withdraw from 
the Church of England but political events, and, 
particularly the independence of the American 
Republic, disentangled them, and took them from 
under British law. In addition, Wesley's societies 
never belonged to the State church and never 
Were under the ecclesiastical law of the Estab- 
lishment, and hence could not have withdrawn. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 55 



Wesley preferred the episcopal form of Church 
government and Thomas Coke, D. C. L., and 
Francis Asbury were indicated for the work of 
superintendency, and, as Asbury says in his jour- 
nal, at the Barratt mansion in Delaware, "The 
design of organizing the Methodists into an In- 
dependent Episcopal Church was opened to the 
preachers present, and it was agreed to call a 
General Conference." 

Referring to this conference which met in Bal- 
timore, at Christmas time, 1784, Asbury in 
another entry in his journal wrote: "It was 
agreed to form ourselves into an Episcopal 
Church." In the "Form of Discipline" then 
adopted, the decision was thus stated: "We will 
form ourselves into an Episcopal Church," and 
the Minutes of the Conference read: "We thought 
it best to become an Episcopal Church" ; and to 
this we add that the Rev. Richard Whatcoat, 
who was present, records that the conference 
"agreed to form a Methodist Episcopal Church," 
Methodist being a qualifying term. 

After all these long years to abandon the name 
Methodist Episcopal is like casting aside the 
name one received in holy baptism and spurning 
the inherited family name. Protests are likely 
to be heard, and if the thing is ever done, there 
will be protests stronger than mere words. 

No, it is not the same thing under a different 
name. There is something in a name, and we 
cherish a loved and venerable name, but when 
we are robbed of the name, and also of the thing 
itself, we have a double right to complain. 



56 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



If this kind of a combination ever comes to 
pass neither church will have what it had before 
the combine, and what it will have will be in- 
finitely worse than either of the churches now 
have. 

The arrangement has been called a unification 
by reconstruction. The people of the church 
have never agreed to that and very few have 
really comprehended what is meant by the 
phrase, and, in the General Conference of 1916, 
very few probably knew they were voting that, 
or understood what the words meant. " Unifica- 
tion by reconstruction" is a smart and indefinite 
invention, and worthy of Machiavelli, the Italian 
statesman of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
whose statecraft is unworthy of the twentieth 
century and, particularly, of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

It is not unification by reconstruction, but 
unification by destruction. It destroys the most 
cherished and essential characteristics. Pretend- 
ing to preserve the constitution of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, it destroys that constitution; 
professing to protect its episcopacy it perverts 
and absolutely destroys that episcopacy; claim- 
ing to unify two churches, it breaks up the coun- 
try and the Church into sections, which is un- 
Methodistic and un-American. 

The scheme calls for the cutting up of the 
country into strips, and in each strip there is to 
be a regional Jurisdiction with a Regional Con- 
ference. In the United States there are to be 
five white regions and one black regional con- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 57 



ference, the first time the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has been officially asked to make a racial 
distinction in its government. It is a re-estab- 
lishment of the old sectionalism which nearly 
destroyed the national union, and the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, which stood for that Union 
and fought for the Union, is asked to re-establish 
this disruptive sectionalism. The great non-sec- 
tional Methodist Episcopal Church is actually 
asked to deny its record and to split American 
Methodisms into sections and put certain condi- 
tions back as they existed before the Civil War, 
and in doing so to consent to obliteration as 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in mak- 
ing this supreme sacrifice, to die and leave a 
sectionalism which may break Methodism into 
small fragments and ultimate in new secessions, 
and the establishment of new governments both 
in Church and State. 

It is very much as though the United States of 
America, fifty and more years after fighting in 
the Civil War to preserve the national Union, 
would say to the Section that fought to break up 
the Union: "Your Section is now recognized and, 
as you desired, you can now govern yourselves 
and the rest of the people who live among you." 
So it looks like an abject surrender of the sound 
principles for which the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has stood, and the suicide of the church. 
The church should say "No surrender!" "We 
will not commit suicide!" "We will stand for 
our old principles and our old church!" 

Surely it must seem strange that commission- 



58 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 

ers who professed to be working for union should 
produce a plan not of union but of disunion, as 
it breaks up the church and the country into 
geographical sections, and still more surprising 
must it seem, when, in view of the organization 
of both the churches, something very different 
might have been evolved. If it had proposed a 
simple union of the two Methodist Episcopal 
Churches under a continuation of old principles, 
it would have been a very different thing. 

As it is it involves a resurrection and perpetua- 
tion of the old slave controversies, and bases itself 
on the withdrawal of a section in 1845, and 
essentially this very plan was presented in the 
General Conference in 1844, when Southern dele- 
gates proposed a breaking up into two sections, 
North and South, each section having its own 
governing conference. That is the germ of the 
whole scheme.* It was rejected then and it 
should be rejected now. 

The Regional Conferences are to select their 
own bishops and to make their own laws for the 
region, and, immediately all uniformity of law 
and government in the new Church would cease, 
and the short-lived General Conference, largely 
a figurehead, would become a caricature on a 
very small scale of the great General Conference 
the church has known. 

The bishop will not be a general superinten- 

* For a full treatment of these questions see "American 
Methodism, Its Divisions and Unification," by Bishop 
Thomas B. Neely, D.D., LL.D. New York: Fleming 
H. Revell Company, 8vo, pp. 407. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 59 

dent throughout the whole church, but will be 
the bishop of a region, and he cannot act as a 
bishop in another region unless permitted by the 
bishop or bishops of that region, and the Gen- 
eral Superintendents cannot assign him to an 
Annual Conference unless a majority of the resi- 
dent bishops in that jurisdiction concur. 

The scheme is most complicated. It makes an 
intricate polity as compared with the simplicity 
of the government of the Methodist Episcopal 
Churches, and it is a radical and unnatural de- 
parture from the plan on which both churches 
were founded and developed. 

Some very radical changes are proposed in the 
"restrictive rules," as they have commonly been 
called. What now stands in the constitution as 
the second restriction, namely, "The General 
Conference shall not organize nor authorize the 
organization of an Annual Conference with less 
than twenty-five members," is omitted. 

The time-honored restriction: "The General 
Conference shall not change nor alter any part 
or rule of our government so as to do away 
Episcopacy, nor destroy the plan of our itinerant 
General Superintendency ; but may elect a Mis- 
sionary Bishop or Superintendent for any of our 
foreign Missions, limiting his Episcopal jurisdic- 
tion to the same respectively," suffers a number 
of vital and destructive changes. 

All the part about the Missionary Episcopacy 
is stricken out. "Do away Episcopacy" is made 
to read: "Do away with Episcopacy." "Nor to 
destroy the plan of our itinerant General Super- 



60 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



intendency" is made to read "Or to destroy our 
itinerant General Superintendency." 

The change of "nor" to "or" may be regarded 
as of minor importance, but the striking out of 
the words "the plan of" from "the plan of our 
itinerant General Superintendency" is both 
important and vital. There was put into the 
constitution a "plan," a well understood plan, 
making it a peculiar and specific kind of episco- 
pacy and of "our itinerant General Superinten- 
dency" under this plan. 

This weakens, strikes out and destroys that 
specific "plan," and opens the way so that they 
can go on changing the "itinerant General Super- 
intendency" up to the point of absolutely destroy- 
ing it. With "the plan" out they may destroy 
"our" episcopacy, and yet as long as a vestige 
remains they may claim that it has not been 
destroyed. Plainly that is why "the plan," which 
is essential to the system, is left out. 

The article in the constitution on "Amend- 
ments" is radically changed. It strikes out all 
concerning the vote "of two-thirds of the Lay 
Electoral Conferences," which omission is an 
assumption that there will be no lay electoral 
conference and that the laymen will be in the 
Annual Conferences. 

But the most striking and exceedingly serious 
feature is the striking out of the words "excepting 
Article X, §1" from "alter or amend any of the 
provisions of this Constitution, excepting Article 
X, §1." This section of Article X was to protect 
the doctrinal standards of the church so as to 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 61 



make it impossible or most difficult to change 
them, even by the process of constitutional 
amendment, and the section reads: "The Gen- 
eral Conference shall not revoke, alter nor change 
our Articles of Religion, nor establish any new 
standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our 
present existing and established standards of 
doctrine." 

The constitution of the church prohibits the 
changing of the doctrines or the doctrinal stand- 
ards of the church, or the first restrictive rule 
which protects the doctrines, as might be done 
with some other item, but the proposed consti- 
tution from the Commission on Unification anni- 
hilates the restriction in the provision for amend- 
ment, and opens the way to the change of the 
Articles of Religion and the destruction of the 
doctrinal standards, so that, possibly within a 
single year, the doctrines of the church could be 
swept away. Some designing and far-seeing 
mind must have devised this way of reaching and 
ruining the doctrinal system.* 

In the letter of transmission the commissioners 
say the "Plan" or Constitution for the proposed 
new church is "the best we have been able to 
agree upon." This looks like a misprint so that 
one might conjecture that, instead of "the best," 
the reading should be "the worst," for it is hard 
to conceive that they could have concocted any- 

*See "Doctrinal Standards of Methodism, Including 
the Methodist Episcopal Churches," by Bishop Thomas 
B. Neely, D.D., LL.D. New York: Fleming H. Revell 
Company, 8vo, pp. 355. 



62 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



thing worse, and that to do this they must have 
been hypnotized or, as they say in the land of 
the voodoo, they had been "hoodooed." 

It is so utterly destructive that it may be said 
to protect nothing but to practically wreck every- 
thing. It does not protect the history, or the 
polity, or the doctrines, of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, but is absolutely destructive of the 
Methodist Episcopal system. If it is called a 
union it is falsely so called, and if it is called a 
unification it is not fairly so called, and it would 
be injurious to both bodies so that neither would 
find what it put into it. 

There is a little relief in the assurance and fact 
that the joint commission did not recommend this 
scheme for adoption by the two General Confer- 
ences, and neither did either commission acting 
separately ask its General Conference to agree 
to the proposed scheme, but, on the contrary, the 
joint commission refused to adopt a resolution 
recommending the adoption. 

It merely said it was "the best we have been 
able to agree upon under the circumstances and 
under our instructions. We submit the same for 
your consideration and decision." 

In other words, they were limited by circum- 
stances and handicappel by their instructions, so 
that they could not act freely and produce the 
Jdnd of a document which was satisfactory to 
themselves. The language in the statement 
shows the commissioners knew the plan was not 
what it ought to be, and that they might have 
constructed something much better, had they not 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 63 

been limited by wrong instructions from their 
General Conferences. 

As the commissioners do not recommend the 
adoption of this "Plan of Unification" the Church 
should take them at their word and say the plan 
is not what it ought to be, and refuse to adopt it. 

Anyhow, it never has been demonstrated that 
the union of the two bodies is absolutely neces- 
sary at this time. The two churches can get 
along as they are. They have done so and they 
can still carry on their work, and much of the 
talk about waste, overlapping, and working at 
cross purposes, is not well founded, and neither 
of the churches can afford to sacrifice everything 
for a merely nominal union, a union in name but 
not in fact. 

Certainly there is nothing so pressing in the 
question of unification that requires the destruc- 
tion of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the 
Methodist Episcopacy, the abandonment of the 
principles for which the church has stood through 
the generations, the abandonment of those who 
have stood by it, including its six hundred thou- 
sand white people in the South and their millions 
of property, and the sinking of a Church as broad 
as the nation into a sectionalism like the sec- 
tionalism of the old ante-bellum times. 

The two churches still can go on with their 
work, the one as a nation-wide church and the 
other as a sectional church, without any more 
friction than between two Presbyterian bodies or 
two of any other kind, until the right plan of 
union is devised. 



64 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



These are some of the conditions that exist and 
some of the problems that should be met, and 
they cannot be disproved or improved simply by 
religious gush or an intolerant optimism. 

Some of the facts stated and the points indi- 
cated may have been overlooked by many and 
the revelations may come as a surprise, but they 
have been and are there just the same, and it be- 
hooves every lover of his Church to open his 
eyes and look, and when he looks, he will be 
likely to see much more. 

When he sees, he should reflect, and act. 



CHAPTER III 



CAUSES OF UNFAVORABLE CONDITIONS 

What is the matter with the Church? is a pri- 
mary question, and the next question is: Why 
do such unfavorable or such unsatisfactory con- 
ditions exist? In other words, what are the 
causes of these unfortunate conditions? 

Space and time do not permit the presentation 
of a complete category of causes, but some of the 
more conspicuous facts and causes may be cited. 

From the conditions, therefore, we turn to the 
causes. 

We must assume that adequate causes exist, 
or have existed, for an effect comes from a cause, 
according to the well known law of cause and 
effect. 

As the physician seeks the cause of the weak- 
ened or diseased physical condition so we should 
seek the cause or causes of the wrong state of the 
church. Though we may not find all the causes, 
we may find some, and at least glance at the 
most important. 

We seek, therefore, some fundamental points, 
and, in doing so, may go below what may be 
regarded as superficial and accidental manifes- 
tations, and yet some of the most potent causes 
may be found right on the surface. 

As a general statement, but with some excep- 
tions, it may be said that the Methodist Episco- 

5 (65) 



86 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



pal Church of today knows comparatively little 
about fundamental Methodism, and much of that 
little is not known with much accuracy. 

Indeed, it is to be feared that as to funda- 
mental and essential Methodism the Church, gen- 
erally speaking, never knew so little as at the 
present time and the logical reasons for this con- 
dition are not difficult to find. 

In brief, the reason is that fundamental 
Methodism in recent years has not been empha- 
sized in preaching, in addresses, and in the litera- 
ture of the denomination as it was in former 
times. 

Hence throughout the church there is a lack 
of knowledge as to essential Methodism, and 
preachers and people, in ordinary practice and 
even in legislation, proceed with little reference 
to it. 

There was a period when laymen, as well as 
ministers, read and reread the standard works 
of Methodism, but now the laity of the church, 
generally speaking, do not have Methodistic 
libraries or important Methodistic books in their 
homes, as did the laity of former generations. 

Then even families of very moderate means 
had the great literary works of Methodism, and 
in their libraries, whether large or small, were 
found Wesley's Works, Clarke's Commentaries, 
Watson's Theological Institutes, Watson's Bibli- 
cal and Theological Dictionary, and kindred 
works, including histories of Methodism, and, in 
later days, such books as Whedon on the Will. 

Such libraries in the ordinary home are now 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 67 

few and far between, and in the average Meth- 
odist Episcopal home in this day, whatever books 
are found, have among them an exceedingly small 
percentage of strictly Methodistic works. A gen- 
eration or so ago the pastors spread the books 
among the people and sold such books wherever 
they went. That praiseworthy practice generally 
has ended and the present generation feels the 
evil consequences. 

Even ministers generally do not read and study 
the representative Methodist or Wesleyan books, 
as their predecessors did, and probably the weak- 
est section in the library of the average Meth- 
odist Episcopal minister is the department 
labeled Methodism, if there is any such depart- 
ment. It will be found that the average minis- 
terial library in the denomination has no generous 
representation of Methodistic history, law and 
theology. 

In corroboration of this statement parties in 
the Methodist Book Concern will tell that on the 
average neither laymen or ministers of the church 
buy many, or any, of the standard Methodistic 
books, and that few orders relatively come for 
the leading books, written by the old leaders and 
that treat of Methodist fundamentals. As they 
are not bought, they are not read, and the next 
thing is the opinion that it does not pay to pub- 
lish purely Methodistic books. 

As Methodist Episcopal books are not much 
read by Methodist Episcopalians, that goes far 
to explain some of the prevailing conditions, and 
some publication policies of the Book Concern. 



68 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



These things being correct it can readily be 
seen that among Methodist Episcopalians knowl- 
edge of fundamental Methodism must be exceed- 
ingly weak and limited, and, that being the case, 
there must be a constant danger of going con- 
trary to Methodism and its vital interests. 

To be more specific, for example, throughout 
the Church there is little accurate knowledge of 
the history of Methodism, and more particularly 
the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
in the United States of America, and, conse- 
quently, not knowing the thrilling story of Meth- 
odism, the esprit de corps is weak, there is a 
diminished attachment to the church, and, hence, 
it is easy to shift to other denominations. 

There is little accurate knowledge, and less 
understanding, of the polity of the Church among 
the masses of the people. To change the phrase, 
there is a lamentable lack of knowledge of the 
Church law. 

What is worse, there is a widespread indiffer- 
ence to the law, and, in not a few instances, 
downright violations of the law are perpetrated 
with impunity, and often without recognition as 
such. 

On the one hand there is ignorance or defiance 
of the law, and on the other hand there are 
assumptions or usurpations of authority without 
the shadow or pretense of law. 

Even pastors seem at times to not know, or to 
disregard, the law, sometimes even omitting or 
refusing to carry out the law relating to the re- 
ception of members into the church. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 69 



Church bodies sometimes are not as anxious 
as they should be to ascertain whether their 
measures are permissible under the law, and 
some seem to think they can go on and do what 
they want to do, if they can get a majority vote, 
though a law question may be in the way. 

Even instances can be found where General 
Conferences have acted unconstitutionally in 
very vital matters, and some delegates need to 
learn that, in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
the General Conference is not supreme in every- 
thing, but is a restricted body, acting under a 
constitution, and that the whole church is the 
supreme power, and that even the Annual Con- 
ferences can challenge the constitutionality of a 
General Conference action. 

Some boldly assert that there is a tendency on 
the part of Church boards or their officials to 
exert powers that are not granted them by the 
law or the Constitution of the Church. 

Where, for example, can a board or its officer 
find the right to create a law or requirement, 
demand obedience and enforce it, when the only 
body that can make a law is the General Con- 
ference, and it only in harmony with the Church's 
Constitution. 

Complaints are being voiced against what are 
termed undue or illegal assertions of power by 
boards or their representatives, when the board 
and its officers have no power except as speci- 
fically given them by the law as in the Book of 
Discipline. This is regarded as bureaucracy, and 
serious objections are urged against it as being 



70 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



unconstitutional, and as bad or worse than autoc- 
racy. 

In various directions there are a good many 
who either do not know the law or are defiant 
of the law and the authority of the church. Now 
when people break the law it is because they are 
ignorant of the law or because they have little 
or no respect for it. If they know the law and 
deliberately violate it, they are lawless, and put 
themselves into the anarchistic class. So when 
a pastor or a layman says "I do not care what 
the Book of Discipline says," he is making him- 
self a candidate for admission into that class of 
undesirables. 

More particularly, there is indifference not only 
to statute law or law in general, but even a dis- 
regard of the Constitution of the Church, and, 
strange to say, sometimes in actions regarding the 
Episcopacy, there have been downright violations 
of the Constitution. 

This may not always be due to a deliberate 
intention to violate the Constitution but rather 
to a lack of knowledge, though in some instances 
it would seem that there was a refusal to inquire 
or to allow the Constitution or anything else to 
stand in the way of the execution of the desires 
of the managers and voters. 

Unfortunately there is too generally an imper- 
fect knowledge of the polity of the Church and 
the philosophy which underlies it. This is ex-^ 
ceedingly unfortunate, for, if people knew the 
reasons for the polity, they would hold it in high 
esteem. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



71 



The Church has a most excellent economy. Its 
supervisional system is most thorough and help- 
ful, while its system of pastoral supply is un- 
equalled in Protestantism, and, if it is properly 
carried out by all concerned, it will give almost 
universal satisfaction. 

There is danger of failing to distinguish 
between the system and the administration of the 
system, and, so, there may be cries against the 
system when the complaint only lies against its 
defective administration, and sometimes it would 
seem that those who make the outcry are them- 
selves partly responsible for the faulty condi- 
tions. 

The system being good in itself, it should not 
be sacrificed because of an objectionable admin- 
istration for which preachers and people, as well 
as presiding elders and bishops, may be respon- 
sible. In such cases the abuses should be elim- 
inated while the system is upheld, and every one 
should act so as to give the system a fair chance. 

Many propositions for changes in the law and 
the economy of the Church show that the parties 
favoring the changes are not familiar with the 
history or philosophy of the laws and usages of 
the denomination, and, again, it is because so 
many others are equally ignorant of the laws and 
the reasons for them that radical promoters are 
sometimes able to secure changes which are out 
of harmony with Methodism and work injury to 
its interests. 

It is to be feared that now and then may be 
found a pastor who must be regarded as account- 



72 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



able in some degree for this failure to respect the 
law. 

Pastors may be found who themselves have 
been lax in the matter of the exact observance 
of the law. They have not instructed the people 
or set the right example, and, perhaps, have not 
administered their charges as though they were 
Methodist Episcopal Churches. They have even 
excused themselves by saying, "Many of my 
members are not Methodists. They have come 
from other denominations," but, when they come 
into the membership of a Methodist Episcopal 
Church, they become Methodist Episcopalians, 
and agree to conform to the laws and usages of 
the denomination. Otherwise they could not 
legally be admitted. 

Law is necessary for protection to each and 
all, for harmony among those in the organization, 
and for united progress, while indifference to the 
law and lack of respect for the Constitution is 
akin to anarchy, and must result in disaster to 
the ecclesiasticism and to all in it. 

That anarchists are in the Church is rather 
startling, but, as there are anarchists in the com- 
munity, there are likely to be some in the Church, 
and that there are some persons who are even 
more than "parlor bolshevists" seems probable. 

Perhaps some individuals do not realize how 
radical these really are, because they are not so 
open in their actions, while others are so bold 
and deliberate in their destructive purposes and 
efforts, that they would be regarded as dangerous 
in the State as well as in the Church. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 73 



It is for the lovers of the Church to defend it 
from destructives of all classes, and to maintain 
the supremacy of the law, for any degree of law- 
lessness is a positive injury and tends to the 
destruction of the organized Church. 

On the other hand, it should be said that the 
mass of the members, and the church generally, 
want to be, and are, law abiding, as far as they 
know the law, and the trouble is with a small 
minority which finds its law in its own imagina- 
tion or momentary impulse, or its selfish ambi- 
tions, and goes on doing what it wants regardless 
of law, or deliberately seeks to overturn the legal 
system by any method which will support its 
purpose, and sometimes by forcing measures 
which do not fit into the long established system. 

It is thus that a generally law abiding church 
may be disturbed and seriously injured by a few 
radical and active persons who know not the law 
or ignore the law, and who, by their aggressive- 
ness, sweep aside the majority and by strategy 
or main force assume control. So it happens that 
while the heart of the church is right the affairs 
of the church may go awry. 

The most serious cause of some of the unhappy 
conditions is a general lack of knowledge as to 
the doctrines of the church. 

One does not like to say it, and it is a hard 
thing to say, but nevertheless it is true, that as 
to the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church there is an amazing lack of knowledge 
among the laity, and a steadily and rapidly 
growing lack among the ministry, and especially 



74 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



as to exact or definite knowledge. It is depress- 
ing and grates on us harshly to even think that 
as to the doctrines of the denomination there is a 
general ignorance both among the ministry and 
the laity, and yet what else is it practically or 
actually? 

To say that some who ignore the doctrines do 
know them but do not teach them, does not make 
it any better but far worse, for, if this be true, 
they are deliberately discarding the doctrines 
they obligated themselves to observe and teach. 

Plainly there is no real excuse for not knowing 
the doctrines of the church for they have been 
duly formulated and printed. Certainly every 
minister is presumed to know them, but the fact 
remains there is a decided lack of precise, and 
even a workable, knowledge of these fundamental 
doctrines. 

Indeed, how could it be otherwise when there 
is so little doctrinal preaching from the pulpit, 
and so little doctrinal teaching anywhere else? 
If the doctrines of Methodism are not taught, or 
are not taught effectively in the Churches, one 
need not be surprised at the absence of knowl- 
edge in this particular. 

It is to be inferred that some ministers seem 
not to know, and it is commonly declared they 
do not preach the doctrines of Wesley and Meth- 
odism, and these things being so, it is easy to 
see why the Church is doctrinally where it is to- 
day, for how can the people know unless they be 
taught? 

The Church has its formulated doctrines so 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



75 



that those who seek may find and those who 
inquire may ascertain. 

The Church is supposed to have its catechism, 
but how little and indifferently it is taught in 
the home or in the Sunday School! It is sug- 
gested that the catechism is hardly taught at all. 

There are books on the doctrines, but few buy 
them, few read them and still fewer master them. 

Laymen complain that some Methodist Epis- 
copal ministers do not preach the doctrines of the 
Church, and that some preach doctrines contrary 
to the formulated faith of the denomination, and 
some laymen say that for years they have not 
heard from their pulpit the fundamental doc- 
trines of Methodism, but are compelled to listen 
to antagonistic views unless they worship else- 
where. 

If that be true, is it because such preachers do 
not believe the doctrines or because they do not 
know them? 

If the latter is the explanation, how is it that 
preachers do not know the doctrines, and how 
is it that, not knowing them, they were passed 
by the examiners and were admitted into the 
Annual Conference, and, if they have not learned, 
how is it that they have been carried along as 
pastors and been permitted to officiate, when 
they do not impart to the people the doctrinal 
teachings of the Church? Whose fault is it? 

This complaint is not made simply against 
preachers of inferior scholastic education, but 
more frequently against those who have had high 
culture, and even some who have come from our 



73 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



own church schools ; and, growing out of this com- 
plaint, comes the question: How can it be pos- 
sible that preachers who come from Methodist 
Episcopal institutions of learning do not know 
the doctrines of the Church, or knowing, do not 
preach them? 

Of course these observations do not apply to 
all or a majority of the preachers by any means, 
but the point is that these things should not be 
found anywhere or in any case, but the instances 
are numerous enough to cause some to ask: What 
have our schools, and, particularly our schools of 
theology, been doing in recent years if this is the 
product or part of the produce? And the loyal 
souls may be pardoned for asking the question. 

The Church used to boast that, while in the 
course of its history the Methodist Episcopal 
Church had differences on points of polity, it had 
no serious differences on matters of doctrine, and 
that as to doctrinal teaching there was general 
harmony, but that cannot be said so boldly and 
baldly today, for it would be foolish to deny that 
within the Church there are doctrinal conflicts 
and the theological schools do not prevent them. 

Judging from the average student output of 
recent days, some are inclined to say that appar- 
ently the colleges and schools of theology, even 
within the church are not teaching the established 
doctrines of the church, or that they are not using 
therein the most impressive and effective methods 
of instruction. 

If this be true then it may be asked: What 
doth it profit a Methodist Episcopal minisiter, 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 77 



though he know the Greek alphabet, and yet does 
not know the first principles of Methodism; and 
what profit is it to such a preacher though he 
knows a few Hebrew roots yet has little or no 
knowledge of the life-giving roots of Methodism? 

What kind of a Methodist Episcopal preacher 
can one be, no matter what else he may know, if 
he does not know the history, the law, and the 
doctrines of his Church to which and in which 
he is to minister? 

How can such a man take the ordination vows? 
And then how can an honest preacher break his 
vows and profess to be keeping them? 

Much of this condition among the regular min- 
isters may be attributed to the change of method 
in examining candidates for admission into the 
Annual Conferences. Twenty years or more ago 
such candidates were examined directly in and 
by the Annual Conference or by its own Com- 
mittee,, or by both, so that the members of 
the Conference had direct knowledge as to the 
requirements and ability of the candidates, but 
a little over twenty years ago there was intro- 
duced the method of excusing the candidates 
from these direct examinations in studies and in 
lieu thereof certificates from institutions were 
accepted. So the personal examination of the 
candidates was taken out of the hands of the 
Conference and practically transferred to more 
or less remote individuals who did not belong to 
the Annual Conference. In this way the Con- 
ference lost the old scrutiny and intimate knowl- 
edge of the applicants and men possibly are 



78 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



sometimes admitted who would have been re- 
jected under the old system. 

This new method is not mandatory, for the law 
says: "Certificates * * * may be accepted 
by the Conference," so that the Conference need 
not follow this course, but the modern method 
has been so construed that it has become general. 

The new law also says, "The Annual Confer- 
ence shall examine all candidates in regard to 
their personal attitude toward the Doctrine and 
Discipline of the Church" (Book of Discipline, 
Appendix, j[597), but ascertaining his personal 
attitude is very different from an examination in 
the theology of the Church. Personal attitude 
and knowledge are two different things, and a 
man might say, and believe, that he accepted the 
doctrines, when his examination on his knowl- 
edge and statements of the doctrines themselves 
would show that he was far from being rooted 
and grounded in the doctrinal teachings of his 
denomination. 

If the doctrines of the Church are not properly 
preached from the pulpit, or taught in the Sun- 
day School to the young generation, or fully 
taught in our own institutions of learning, what 
will be the doctrinal condition of the Church in 
a few years, say in fifteen or twenty years, as 
the older generation passes on, and as unindoc- 
trinated or falsely or faultily indoctrinated 
youths take the places of those who knew and 
taught the truth as held by the Church? 

Ten years make a radical change in an Annual 
Conference. Ministers die and new men take 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 79 



their places, and, if the new men do not preach 
the truth as the Church has interpreted the truth, 
in a few years neither preachers nor people will 
know and stand for the truth. 

Somebody has a responsibility in this matter. 
Who should bear it? Whose duty is it to act? 

The condition referred to is bad enough under 
the most polite aspects, but it is infinitely worse, 
when in connection with it, is found a spirit of 
disdain and contempt manifested toward those 
who adhere to the doctrines of the Church, and 
this is found in those who meet the declaration 
or presentation of the old doctrines with a laugh, 
a shrug of the shoulders, a contemptuous lifting 
of the eyebrows, or an audible sneer, or an air of 
supercilious pity, for that means antagonistic 
doctrines with a bad spirit. 

If any one should apologize, it is not one who 
maintains the doctrines of his denomination, but 
the one, though in the church, who assails the 
doctrinal teachings of his church while proclaim- 
ing his loyalty or allowing it to be presumed. 

Certain events connected with these conditions 
have made many believe that there is, and has 
been, a deliberate and far-reaching attempt to 
change and destroy long established and essen- 
tial doctrines of the Church, and to do that 
irregularly and insidiously without openly and 
legally making a change in the Constitution. 

Some tell that, in recent editions of the hymnal, 
old doctrinal and most expressive hymns have 
been gradually eliminated; while other persons 
declare that the young people in the Sunday 



80 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



School are being perverted by un-Methodistic 
suggestions and assertions in the Sunday School 
literature; and others affirm that from official 
Methodist presses come books and periodicals 
which openly antagonize, or tend to undermine 
or destroy, the doctrines of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. 

Are these things so? Are half of them true or 
are they half true? If any one of these affirma- 
tions is true should not the Church defend 
itself? Whose business is it? It is everybody's 
business. 

Some friends of the church are doubtful as to 
the soundness of the later catechisms, and wonder 
what authority there was for changes in doc- 
trinal expressions. If such changes have been 
made surely it is time for the church to put on 
its high-power ecclesiastical spectacles and look 
into these matters. 

The revised Ritual of 1916 is regarded by very 
many as a ruined ritual. That it does not have 
the dignity and strength of the old Ritual is per- 
fectly plain. That it weakens the venerable 
forms, seriously changes expressions, and even, 
as far as it goes, destroys old doctrines, is equally 
plain, and another thing that tends to vitiate the 
revision is the fact that when the General Con- 
ference voted to accept or adopt it, the body did 
not know what it contained, for the Conference 
did not read it, or have it read to it, or even hear 
an explanation of it. In so voting for revised 
formularies containing doctrinal presentations 
the Church received a severe shock. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 81 

Such changes in the formularies of the Church 
are exceedingly serious, and especially when they 
change the doctrinal teaching or alter the verbal 
expression of a doctrine, for that is equivalent to 
making a new or different statement of faith, and 
is contrary to the Constitution of the Church 
which says: the General Conference shall not 
"establish any new standards or rules of doctrine 
contrary to our present existing and established 
standards of doctrine," that is to say, as they 
were in the year 1808, and constitutionally re- 
affirmed in 1900. (Constitution, Article X, §1, 
Book of Discipline, ff46, §1.) 

In the new course of study for ministers, 
printed in the Appendix to the Discipline in 1916, 
Methodism was largely eliminated and practi- 
cally swept away, for to say the least, and to 
say the best, for it, the study of the course would 
not make a Methodist Episcopal minister. 

That it contained books that positively taught 
doctrines contrary to Methodist teaching has 
been asserted far and wide, by voice and in print, 
and by Annual Conferences in session, and, be- 
cause of the clamor and the decision of the Board 
of Bishops, one book had to be taken out because 
of its unacceptable teachings, though it bore the 
imprint of the Methodist Book Concern. 

The law required that the Board of Bishops 
must approve the Course of Study before it goes 
into effect, but as a matter of fact the course of 
study of 1916 was printed in the Appendix of 
the Discipline without its having received the 
proper approval of the Board of Bishops, and the 

6 



82 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



Board of Bishops has never legally approved this 
course of study. 

An action by a body is an action taken in the 
body and in a legally called session, but the 
course was printed and issued without such Board 
action. An officer of the commission sent letters 
and telegrams to individual bishops when the 
Board was not in session asking for their approv- 
al, and some of the bishops, without having the 
books before them or an opportunity to examine 
them, gave their consent apparently on faith, 
which was very different from a board acting in 
a session where the work could be done and the 
questions discussed together. Even a committee 
action must not be by individuals acting sepa- 
rately outside a committee meeting. As former 
Speaker Thomas B. Reed says in his "Parlia- 
mentary Rules," "All action of a committee must 
be taken at a regular meeting duly called or- 
when all are present. No action can be taken 
by members not in meeting assembled. The 
consent of all, individually, without a meeting 
will not render valid any action. It is confer- 
ence, and after that consent, and not consent 
alone which is required." (Reed's Rules, p. 63.) 
Much more is that necessary with a "Board of 
Bishops" or any other important deliberative 
body. 

But this course of study was printed and issued 
without consideration and action by the Board 
of Bishops in a meeting of the Board. Therefore 
it did not have the legal approval. Further, the 
texts never were sent to the Board of Bishops 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 83 



for their scrutiny, as the act of the General Con- 
ference required. 

The Board of Bishops did bring about the 
elimination of one book the commission had put 
into the course, and it did that a good many 
months after the course had appeared in the 1916 
Book of Discipline, in which months others had 
scrutinized the list and started a protest which 
spread across the continent, and one of the 
strongest protestants was an editor of one of the 
church papers. This vigorous and widespread 
opposition compelled attention and the Board of 
Bishops gave the commission permission to take 
that book out, and the ground of the protest and 
the elimination was the Scriptural unsoundness 
of the teachings of the work. The commission 
did take it out of the course, the order to take 
effect a number of months in the future, but in 
its printed announcement the commission pub- 
licly retorted in substance that though it was 
taken out there was nothing the matter with the 
book. 

So one of the books was branded and rejected. 
Nevertheless, this displaced book is published by 
the Methodist Book Concern and its title will be 
found in the list of "Bible Study Text Books" 
and advertised in the Home Department Quar- 
terly, as though, while it is unfit and unsafe for 
young ministers, it will do finely for the shut-ins 
and others in the Home Department of the Sun- 
day School. 

The commission had taken out of the course of 
study, as it had been, "Wesley's Sermons," which 



84 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



had been in the course during long generations, 
and which contained one of the doctrinal stand- 
ards of the Church from the very early days. The 
outcry against putting in the book just mentioned 
also made itself heard against the commission's 
taking out of "Wesley's Sermons." The Board 
of Bishops took cognizance of this protest also 
and indicated that the commission might restore 
them. But the commission did not restore "Wes- 
ley's Sermons," but substituted a volume contain- 
ing a few of Wesley's sermons selected by one 
individual, so that the young preachers do not 
have in the course "Wesley's Sermons" but a 
few samples of these sermons. Before they had 
two large octavo volumes containing a library of 
one hundred and forty sermons, making a great 
body of divinity, but now they have only a 
twelvemo volume containing only ten of the 
sermons by Wesley. That was not putting back 
the "Wesley's Sermons" which had been taken 
out, and so the intention of the Board of Bishops 
was not carried out by this commission. 

It is not difficult for an unbiased mind to per- 
ceive that the commission on the course of study 
did not make a very hard effort to teach funda- 
mental Methodism when it selected books for the 
new course. It may have had some other ideal, 
literary or otherwise, but the teaching of Meth- 
odistic theology or polity was not its dominant 
purpose. 

These things, and especially the character of 
the new course of study, have developed a con- 
siderable commotion throughout the Church, and 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 85 



a considerable number of Annual Conferences 
have taken formal action demanding that the 
commission method be abandoned and that the 
duty of making the course of study be returned 
to the Board of Bishops where it had been lodged 
for a century or thereabouts and from which it 
had been taken by the General Conference in 
1916. 

If the making of the course was to be with- 
drawn from the Board of Bishops and transferred 
to a commission, then on that commission there 
should have been no bishops whatever, and, 
especially if the course, when constructed, was to 
be submitted to the Board of Bishops for its 
judgment and decision. 

As a practical fact the placing of two bishops 
seems to have hampered the Board when the 
Bishops came to scrutinize the course, for natu- 
rally they would hesitate to go against their own 
brother bishops who had helped to devise the 
course. 

Either no bishops should be on the commission, 
or the commission should be abandoned and the 
law abrogated, and the work of framing a course 
for the young ministers should go back to the 
Board of Bishops where it had been so long, for 
it is to be presumed there is no better qualified 
body for such work than the assembled bishops. 

Some assert and many believe that for a num- 
ber of years some have been planning to change 
the doctrinal teaching of the church, and, to aid 
in accomplishing this one part of the plan was 
to take from the bishops the preparation of the 



S6 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



course of study and give it to persons of a differ- 
ent type. 

If that be so, some will conclude that it makes 
an additional reason for dissolving the commis- 
sion and returning the work and duty to the 
Board of Bishops, and then to elect to the episco- 
pacy ministers "who both know and love Meth- 
odist Doctrine and Discipline." 

Perhaps we should not wonder that some think 
plans have been devised to destroy essential doc- 
trines when they say they perceive vital changes 
in the Ritual and other formulations, in the lit- 
erature of the denomination, and of late in re- 
peated demands for radical changes. 

These things are the main causes of many of 
the defective or evil conditions that may be 
found today in the Church. 

Where there is a loss of the general knowledge 
of Methodism and especially of the history of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, there is likely 
to be a loss of love for the church and a tendency 
to drift away from that which is Methodistic, and 
to create situations which tend to submerge 
Methodism or to sweep it out of sight. 

Where there is a loss of knowledge of the law 
or a disregard of the law which is known, there 
is apt to be a weakening or disruption of the 
organism, a disintegration of the organization, 
and a chaotic condition. 

Where there is a lack of knowledge as to the 
doctrines of the Church, or a deliberate depar- 
ture from these doctrines, the moral and religious 
conceptions of the Church become confused and 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 87 



the tendency is to modify and destroy the relig- 
ious and spiritual life of the individual members, 
for their faith and conduct is based on the doc- 
trines which they accept, and, when the spiritual- 
ity and doctrinal knowledge of the members are 
thus affected, there must be serious disaster to 
the denomination. 

Indifference and inaction on the part of those 
in the Church aid and abet those who are aiming 
at the destruction of the true life and faith of the 
denomination, and the indifferent and inactive 
are passively as responsible for the evil result 
as the sappers themselves. 

The time has come for defensive action, even 
if it means agressive action against the fomenters 
of evil. There is no time to spare. 



CHAPTER IV 



NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND NEW DANGERS 

In very recent years there have been new 
developments that carry with them new dangers 
to the Church. 

A multitude of demands have come upon the 
Church from many directions, and, because of 
the variety of people in the membership and the 
Church's helpful disposition, the demands have 
generally met with a sympathetic response. 

This matter has two sides, for a proposed 
activity may be good in itself and yet not be 
the duty of the Church as a Church, and, be- 
cause it is not legitimately required of the 
Church, if the Churches engage in the movement 
this may give to it vigor that should have been 
given to something else, and, because this is 
done, something else has to be left undone. 

Because of these appeals and the impulses of 
people in the Church, it happens that a really 
serious trouble with the Church today is that it 
undertakes to do too many things that do not 
belong to the legitimate or essential work of the 
Christian Church, and, if it be not the normal 
work of the Church, the effort consumes time 
and exhausts energy which were needed in the 
legitimate and fundamental work of the Church. 
To say the least, it is a diversion from real 
churchly activities. 

(88) 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



S9 



This has gone so far that any intelligent and 
thoughtful observer can easily perceive that the 
Church is frequently and almost- steadily being 
used miscellaneously for all sorts of outside 
matters that do not form a part of genuine 
church activity, until there is danger of over- 
looking and forgetting what is the legitimate 
function of the Church of Christ, and this is so 
generally recognized that persons with almost 
any sort of a scheme that professes to have an 
object which is not actually bad, or is remotely 
good, seem to regard the Church as their proper 
prey and try to exploit the Church in the inter- 
est of their project. 

The Church has its own sphere and in it has 
its own peculiar duty. Some other sphere is not 
for it, and it has no right to transgress by going 
out of that sphere, any more than something not 
of the Church has a right to trespass by coming 
into the sphere of the Church. 

It is not the business of the Church to decide 
as to the best process for making steel, or whether 
the force for running a steamer or an engine of 
any kind should come from coal, or oil or elec- 
tricity. Neither is it the business of the Church 
to decide what economic principles should run a 
partnership or govern employers or employees. 
These are matters that belong to other special 
spheres and not to the sphere of the Church, and 
are matters which change like the season's fash- 
ions, while the essential work of the Church 
remains the same throughout the generations. 

The duty of the Church and the duty of the 



90 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



individual member of the Church, as a citizen, 
are two very different things. It is the duty of 
the Christian citizen to take an active interest in 
the affairs of the State, but it is not the business 
of the Church to take sides in partisan politics. 
On this point perhaps some persons would be 
astonished to learn how far they have permitted 
the Church to engage in party politics in the 
interest of men and measures, and they would 
be further surprised to discover what injury has 
come to the Church through this lapse. 

Even Social Service, that proposes to elevate 
the world and save humanity in the mass, is not 
the precise work of the organized Church or the 
method of the Gospel. The Gospel proposes to 
save the world by saving the individual. In a 
sense it is not society but the individual that is 
to be saved, and, when each and every individual 
is saved, society and the whole world will be 
saved. 

In a general sense the same thing is true as 
to civic affairs, yet civic affairs have been 
worked into the Church, and the time and energy 
of the Church have been absorbed, and, to a 
great extent, exhausted. 

The member as a citizen has his civic duties, 
but these things do not belong to the Church as 
an organization. In other words, there are ques- 
tions in which individual Christians should show 
an interest and try to carry forward, but in 
which the organized Church as a Church has no 
direct part. 

It was the teaching of Jesus that his kingdom 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 91 



was not of this world, and that there was a dis- 
tinction between the things of Caesar and the 
things of God, and it is the American idea that 
the State must be separate from the Church and 
the Church from the State. 

Though Church and State are presumed to be 
separate, nevertheless, matters of State and party 
politics have been brought into the Church and 
into Conferences, perhaps under the plea that 
they remotely involve a moral issue, as some one 
might argue that the tariff or free trade were 
moral issues because they affected the welfare 
of many people. 

In this way questions of politics and citizen- 
ship have been brought into the Church when 
they are State questions on which good men 
divide. The Church is to be so conducted that 
people of all political and economic views can 
worship therein without offense because their 
views differ. 

It is high time for those now in the Church 
to re-examine the true nature and mission of the 
Church of Christ, and to see that it functions 
with the intentions of its founder, who said his 
kingdom was not of this world, though in the 
world, and that his Church was to preach the 
Gospel, and build up his disciples in their most 
holy faith. The work of the Church is moral 
and religious, and its method is the preaching 
of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, and, through 
its members, the dissemination of the vital prin- 
ciples of Christianity that transform the world 
by transforming the hearts of men. 



92 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



The Church faces new forces, most of which 
profess to be friendly, and, for that very reason, 
may be the more dangerous, as they disarm sus- 
picion by their plausible profession of good 
intentions. 

They claim to be religious and we would not 
deny the claim, but the religion of a person is 
not positive proof that he is not injudicious and 
even harmful. Their declarations have as their 
keynote the promotion of "the kingdom," as 
though the kingdom had never before been pro- 
moted by the Church, and they ring the changes 
on "the kingdom" until the expression is in dan- 
ger of becoming a sort of cant phrase. But the 
question is not as to their religious purpose, but 
as to the need and wisdom of their project. 

These new forces take the form of outside 
organizations, external to the Church, and differ- 
ent from the Church, and which undertake work 
which bears upon the denomination, and the out- 
side organization seems to suggest, or wishes it 
to be understood, that it is somehow superior to 
the Church, and has the power, or at least is com- 
petent, to direct the denominations. 

The outside organization appears to make the 
plea of co-operation among the denominations, 
and concentration for co-operation, and that 
carries with it the idea of centralized authority 
of some degree, and the natural tendency is to 
dictation and control with the expectation of 
obedience. 

The new organization, of course, means new 
officers with salaries, office and other fixed ex- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



93 



penses and paid workers, for it must be made 
worth while if it is to have a recognized stand- 
ing and hold its workers, and, for the support of 
the movement, the money is to be drawn from 
the denominations. 

Not only are the denominations in some form 
to pay the bills, but the workers likewise are to 
be drawn from the denominations, and especially 
are the denominational pulpits and pastorates to 
be drawn upon. This depletion of the ministry, 
and particularly the pastorate, tends to devitalize 
the denominations and to weaken them in their 
regular work, as anyone can see, and this is 
increased by the interest and time of the denomi- 
nations, which, though needed in their own activ- 
ities, are absorbed by the extra organization. 

Soon there appears a large number of paid 
advocates, we will not say highly paid, going 
around the country representing the outside 
organization, seeking admission into the various 
pulpits, and doing what they can to promote the 
aims of the new overbody, not forgetting the 
item of finance. They deliver addresses, lec- 
tures and discourses, but they are not doing as 
lofty work as when they were pastors, perhaps 
on a smaller salary, and they can hardly be said 
to be doing the real or essential work of the 
Christian minister. At least it is not the ideal 
and complete work of the divinely called 
preacher. 

After awhile, though at first gently, the outside 
organization seems to arrogate to itself some 
superiority and authority over the denominations 



94 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



as far as they will permit it, and the danger is 
that the longer it exists the tamer and more 
docile the denominations become. It begins to 
speak as for the denominations as well as to 
them, and printed or other directions go out to 
their preachers and people who gradually settle 
down to the idea that they are expected to con- 
form and ought to obey, and the overbody settles 
down in the satisfying assurance that its control 
is conceded and that it will have an easier time 
in the future. In the meantime the agents go 
around issuing orders to be obeyed or conde- 
scending to make suggestions which are expected 
to be accepted. 

In course of time, unless the soporific has been 
too strong, the Church may wake up to find that 
its co-operating has gone too far, for it is not 
doing its own work, and signs of decay are 
beginning to appear. 

We do not say that there is no good in any 
of these movements or organizations, but they 
are not churches, and should have no authority 
over the churches. There may be some good in 
the original purpose of some of them, but they 
feed on the denominations, and it is not a good 
thing to have sapped the vitality of the real 
church. 

With a great corps of directors and assistants, 
receiving more or less generous salaries, these 
sinews of war must come from the denomina- 
tions directly or indirectly, and the tax may be 
felt when there are so many demands, but the 
greatest drain from the churches appears in the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 95 



number of workers they lose in the effort to 
build up and carry on these extra organizations. 

The original projector of the movement may 
have been very sincere and had a good intention, 
but the thing itself may not be, or remain, good, 
especially when others share the control. 

The idea may have been in the mind of a 
dreamer, an idealist, but an impractical person. 
It may have been formed in an ambitious brain, 
or in the benevolent desire of a really good man, 
or it may have originated in an intense, obsessed 
man with a dominating nature, having a degree 
of hypnotizing power that enabled him to draw 
to him others, who, under his sway, would put 
his theories into a concrete form and give it life. 
The movement may have been started in one way 
or another, but in all fairness it should be judged 
according to what it is, but the outside organi- 
zation that directly or indirectly controls the 
churches is not a safe institution, but asserts or 
exerts power that is a danger to the Church of 
Christ. 

Not many years ago there was started the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in 
America, and it has been in action ever since. 
With a considerable organization it looks with 
some self-satisfaction into the future. What that 
future is likely to be we will not attempt to tell, 
but it might be profitable for some competent 
person to make the Federal Council a special 
study and give the results to the churches. 

At first the Council was supposed to be a sim- 
ple and harmless movement, with a fraternal 



96 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



organization possessing possibilities of good, 
which was worth the trying, but later develop- 
ments call for a word of caution. At the begin- 
ning it was said to be simply a means of bring- 
ing the Protestant denominations together that 
they might have an agency through which 
massed Protestantism might express itself with 
a common voice on general matters, and especially 
when it was supposed to be assailed or in dan- 
ger, but there is a fear that the Council has lost 
some of its original simplicity and that later 
aspirations found a lodgment and have expanded. 
It has even been reported that the Council asked 
the co-operation of Roman Catholics, and, if that 
be true, one might ask what had become of its 
destinctive Protestantism. 

When one of the workers said the Council 
could be made "the biggest thing in the coun- 
try," a big ambition may have begun to take 
possession of the management with the thought 
of being bigger than the denominations. At first 
the Council was not to interfere with the work of 
the denominations, but of late there seems to be 
manifesting itself a disposition to dominate and 
direct the denominations, at least to a degree, 
and to take charge of very many matters of a 
specific and a miscellaneous character. If the 
Federal Council is recognized as above the 
churches, with the right to control them, it will 
indeed be the biggest thing in the country, but, so 
far, that attitude has not been quite attained. It 
has no authority over the denominations and 
should never be permitted to have any, and, if ii 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 97 



attempts control, the churches should refuse to 
obey and cease to pay. It should not even be 
permitted to say where a local church should be 
planted or abandoned, for the denominations 
should manage their own affairs. 

To this organization the Methodist Episcopal 
Church contributes money from time to time, 
but it is doubtful whether the denomination 
knows what return it receives on this investment. 
If it does not know, the wisdom of its not know- 
ing is open to serious question. 

Out of the Federal Council or under the cover 
of the word Federal there seems to have sprung 
up a multitude of organizations mainly for local 
activity, and everywhere in the land there is 
heard the voice of the Federal this or the Fed- 
eral that, among the pastors and the churches , 
and, as long as they are simply promotive of 
fraternity among the denominations no particu- 
lar harm is done, but now and then, without legal 
authority, these bodies seem to arrogate to them- 
selves power over the churches in the locality, 
and their members or officers inspect the work 
of the churches with an air of authority which 
means it must not be disputed. 

Such groups even undertake to say whether at 
a given place a certain denomination shall 
establish a congregation or build a church, or to 
say that its church should be abandoned, or that 
two congregations must fuse into one, or that, 
though of different faiths, they shall worship 
together. 

Out of this has come a multiplicity not only 

7 



98 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



of the old-fashioned Union Church, but the Fed- 
erated Church, the Community Church and per- 
haps the Interfederated Church and the Inter- 
church Church. The thing generally looks like 
practical anarchy, the ignoring of denomina- 
tional faiths, and the production of churches of 
no faith. In its degree it is destructive of the 
denominations and especially destructive of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. In some of these 
federated churches there may be a pretence of 
keeping up the separate denominational organ- 
ism with its peculiar usages, but this cannot last. 

Sometimes this modern demand amounts to a 
wild craze that refuses to recognize law, pro- 
priety or property rights, as in the case of a 
western town where people were possessed with 
the notion that there should be only one church 
for the place, and became quite furious because 
the Methodist Episcopal bishop in charge would 
not, as, indeed, he could not, pass over the Meth- 
odist Episcopal property to another denomina- 
tion or no denomination. As a matter of fact, 
neither the bishop nor the local congregation 
can alienate the property from the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. That would be a betrayal of 
a trust, for the property was dedicated to the 
Methodist Episcopal Church for its use alone. 

These federated, co-operative and community 
churches have in them many drawbacks and 
dangers. They are neither one thing nor the 
other and tend to no faith, so that they are not 
only a menace to a particular denomination, but 
also a menace to Christianity itself. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 99 



* It may happen that in a certain place a church 
of another denomination is without a pastor and 
finds it difficult to secure one. Then comes a 
suggestion to economize and have the Methodist 
Episcopal Church associated with it and have 
both congregations worship as one in the same 
building. The Methodist Episcopal pastor sees 
in the proposition some temporary advantages. 
For example, it may mean a larger congregation 
and a double salary. The result is that one 
church is closed and the Methodist Episcopal 
preacher becomes the pastor. After a time the 
turn comes for the other denomination to have 
a pastor of its kind, the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has died or become much weaker, it may 
be, and the pastor is thrown back as an extra 
on the crowded Conference, expecting an equal 
or better salary, the adjustments are made more 
difficult, and other men are squeezed and injured. 

In all this there is a disregard for denomina- 
tional beliefs and for denominational training, 
though the vital thing in a church is its denomi- 
national doctrines, and the peculiar emphasis 
placed upon its faith in relation to the church 
and to practical living. The denominations are 
not all the same and one's own denomination 
should mean more to him than does any other 
religious body. 

It may be said that there are too many 
churches, but that is not true for, generally 
speaking, there are not too many churches for 
the population. Then it may be said there are 
too many churches for the locality, but even that 



100 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



is not clear. What is the limit of the locality? 
The outlying population may have to be con- 
sidered. But it may be said the church has only 
a mere handful of members. Very well, that 
handful has as much right to hear the truth as 
interpreted denominationally by its own denomi- 
nation, as the largest congregation in the land, 
and, if the people are willing to pay what they 
can and the preacher is willing to trust in the 
Lord, the little church should be permitted to live. 
Most of the large churches began as very little 
churches, and the Methodist Episcopal Church 
would not have become the great body it is had 
it not been for its small churches. The small 
church may grow and the community may grow, 
and in the meantime the Methodist Episcopal 
system has a way of supporting and caring for 
the small church by associating it with a nearby 
church and making a circuit of several charges. 

Nearly all this fad for fusing or abandoning 
churches is based on the false notion that all the 
denominations are alike, and that it makes no 
difference to what one a man belongs, or what 
he believes. This is a grave fallacy, for religions 
and denominations do differ, and it does make 
a vital difference what one believes. 

In all these unionistic experiments the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church is the chief loser. Just 
why this is the case the present does not afford 
opportunity to tell. 

Notwithstanding the existence of The Federal 
Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 
with its professions and claims as the consolidat- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 101 



ing body of American Protestantism, another 
body, also having the purpose of associating the 
evangelical Protestant denominations, has been 
projected and in a preliminary sense is begin- 
ning to function. It has had conventions and 
ad interim committees, and has already framed 
a constitution which it asks the Protestant 
churches to accept. 

The movement seems to have had some rela- 
tion to the Federal Council, for its chief promoter 
was an active member of the Council and one of 
its chief officers, and a most prominent minister 
in the Presbyterian Church. Perhaps he saw 
there were limitations on the Federal Council 
that could be avoided in the new organization, 
and that the new body could more fully perform 
a work which the Council could not accomplish. 
Whether it will ultimately take the place of the 
Federal Council remains to be seen, but the ref- 
erences of the new body to the Council appear to 
be amicable. 

Originally it was understood that the aim of 
the new organization was organic unity, but at 
its first convention, which was in 1918, it was 
called the "Interchurch Conference on Organic 
Union," but in a recent meeting it called itself 
the "United Churches of Christ in America," and 
in a proposed constitution it was termed "The 
United Church in America." It is further stated 
that the plural "churches" will be made singular 
when the denominations come in, and that the 
title will be "The United Church of Christ in 
America." 



102 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



This is plainly in the direction of the organic 
unity of the evangelical Protestant denomina- 
tions in the United States of America, and the 
aim is quite clearly stated in the title, "The 
United Church of America" and even in the 
plural form "The United Churches of Christ in 
America." 

While for the present, and it may be longer, 
each denomination may be allowed to retain its 
peculiarities, the manifest intention is a concen- 
tration by union, so that the organization will be 
an actual ecclesiastical unity and a real eccle- 
siastical entity, with ecclesiastical powers, hold- 
ing and administering property and funds, and, 
for example, carrying on the missionary opera- 
tions of the church or the churches adhering to 
the new body. 

A peculiar fact about this project and its meet- 
ings is that they are not the result of authoriza- 
tion by all the denominations mentioned in the 
proceedings. Thus the Methodist Episcopal 
Church did not indorse or authorize it or appoint 
delegates to its meetings, for no General Con- 
ference had convened and considered it. The 
names of a number of Methodist Episcopalians 
appeared in the list of delegates, few of whom, 
however, were present, but they were individuals 
and not duly appointed representatives of the 
Church, and, as the General Conference did not 
appoint them or authorize the movement, they 
were without authority. 

With such an organic union or unity of the 
Protestant bodies under this superior organiza- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 103 



tion, it seems plain that the several denomina- 
tions could not have the same denominational life 
they have had, and that it means ultimately the 
actual or practical extinction of the denomina- 
tions as such. Plainly that would be the ulti- 
mate fate of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
this proposed United Churches, which would 
become the United Church. 

The organic unity of the Churches of Christ 
at this time is an ignis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisp, 
which some good people chase through the eccle- 
siastical marsh but never reach. The Church 
once had organic unity when it was under one 
ecclesiastical government, and, though an organic 
unity, it never was so corrupt and despotic. 
Surely those who know the history should never 
want to try the experiment again. 

Christ did not mean that kind of unity when 
he prayed: "That they all may be one." Though 
separate individuals, all may be one in the "unity 
of the spirit" and be in different denominations. 

Denominational divisions, as we have seen, 
are not necessarily an evil, but may be a very 
positive blessing. They check each other, they 
stimulate each other, they instruct each other, 
they protect each other, and they help to secure 
the liberty of each other and the freedom of the 
individual. The division made by the Reforma- 
tion made for freedom and progress, and divisions 
in Protestantism have worked for the same ends. 
It would seem inconceivable that a great denom- 
ination like the Methodist Episcopal Church 
would give up its freedom and put itself under 



104 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



the government of any other ecclesiasticism, 
much less a concentration like an organic union 
or organic unity whether made in the United 
States or in Rome. 

With all these Church movements there is the 
"World Conference of Faith and Order." This 
is of Protestant Episcopal origin, but in it are 
small commissions representing different denomi- 
nations, one of which is the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. 

The commission is strongly financed, having 
received a large gift or bequest from the senior 
Mr. Morgan, the banker. The purpose is to 
study matters of faith and order, and the ques- 
tion of Church unity, but what has been accom- 
plished is not yet perfectly clear, though it is 
understood that a Protestant Episcopal deputa- 
tion to Rome was not able to induce the Pope 
to come into the kind of union the Protestant 
representatives proposed, but they found that he 
was more than willing to admit them, with all 
other Protestants into the Church of Rome. For 
that, however, they are not yet ready. In addi- 
tion, the Methodist Episcopalians have not pro- 
posed to go into any union. 

And now, in addition to all these interdenomi- 
national organizations or proposed organizations, 
another one, possibly involving some similar 
things, has recently been brought forward and 
insists on instant attention and immediate con- 
formity. 

It carries an impressive title, The Interchurch 
World Movement. The title, Interchurch, would 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 105 

suggest that it was ordered and made by action 
of the different denominations, but we learn that 
this is not accurate, and we are informed that it 
was not originated or ordered by the Churches, 
but that it is the work of individuals who belong 
to various denominations, and that these indi- 
viduals have been and are endeavoring to com- 
mit the Churches to the project, and, so far there 
are denominations that have not gone into it. 

One of the denominations that has not author- 
ized it is The Methodist Episcopal Church, 
though individual Methodist Episcopalians are 
actively engaged in the work of the new organi- 
zation. No power lower than the General Con- 
ference could put the Church into such a move- 
ment or organization, and it has not met, and 
there is doubt as to whether the General Con- 
ference has the power or right to do so. The 
General Conference has "power to make rules 
and regulations for the Church," but there may 
be a question as to whether this matter comes 
under this head, and whether the Conference can 
command the ministry and membership to do 
something not in but outside of the Church. 
Strictly speaking it cannot, for the General Con- 
ference is not the Church. 

The College of Bishops of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, South, has declared it has no right 
to recognize this so-called Interchurch World 
Movement, and, in this particular, the law of 
the Church, South, is the same as ours, and, if 
the Southern bishops have no right to recognize 
this new movement, neither have the bishops of 



106 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



the Methodist Episcopal Church any right to do 
so. 

We know what interchurch is supposed to 
mean, but the exact intention of "World Move- 
ment" is not so simple. Whether there is a world 
movement that has made the organization, or the 
organization is to move the world, may be as one 
interprets it, but the title sounds well. 

Because a Methodist Episcopalian is in this 
movement that does not give it or him any 
authority in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
its interest, or make it the duty of any minister 
or member of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
to follow his suggestion or obey its dictation. 

The Interchurch World Movement is an out- 
side organization and has no right to command 
those in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
no one in the Church is under any obligation to 
obey. It was not made by the Church, it is not 
superior to the Church, and it is not a part of 
the Church, and, it follows, therefore, that it has 
no right to come into the Church and exploit its 
pastors and people. 

The Interchurch World Movement, notwith- 
standing the fact that it now presents a variety 
of subjects, seems to be mainly a financial move- 
ment by an outside organization to extract from 
the people of the Churches an immense amount 
of money, and then to give it back to the denomi- 
nations, less, probably, the millions of dollars for 
managers' salaries and other expenses. In other 
words, it is a huge volunteer trust which the 
Church is not bound to support. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 107 



Its promoters talk about a thousand millions, 
and even billions, as though such an amount 
were a mere trifle, and an easy sum to raise. 
We will not say it cannot be raised, but rather 
that it may be secured by the repetition of 
methods which have been used in war times by 
the United States Government and a number of 
far-reaching organizations. If the people gen- 
erally will again submit to "drives" and the 
onslaught of an army of promoters one may not 
say what cannot be done. We do not prophesy, 
but caution is a safe word. 

Starting on millions of borrowed money for 
propaganda and salaries, there are large possi- 
bilities under skillful management. But, even 
"Napoleons" of finance have usually had their 
Waterloo, and if that historic fact were repeated 
in what is called a church movement there might 
be a most serious disaster to the denominations 
and to Christendom, and it would be most unfor- 
tunate if the world would begin to regard the 
Church as a financial plunger, which word has 
already been used. However, it is understood 
that expenses and debts for borrowed money will 
have the first claim on the receipts and that the 
Churches will get what is left. 

On the other hand, it looks as though the peo- 
ple in the Churches will not submit to many more 
"drives," for already they complain of the strain 
and their distress, and doubts are expressed as 
to the future. This does not mean that difficulty 
will result from a general financial collapse, 
though persons in the financial world predict its 



108 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



probability. It is to be hoped that this will be 
avoided, but, if a crash never comes, Church 
people are getting weary of being driven, and, 
particularly by forces they do not quite under* 
stand, while pastors and leaders of denomina- 
tions are pointing to deterioration in their 
churches because of the distractions created by, 
and the demands of, those who are pressing these 
methods. It would seem that the Churches could 
attend to their own business and save the mil- 
lions that go to the support of outside organiza- 
tions. 

In the meantime, thoughtful people wonder 
what will become of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church if it goes into the Federal Council, into 
the United Church, or Churches of Christ in 
America and goes into or under the Interchurch 
World Movement, to say nothing of other organi- 
zations and movements. Where would it be? 
What would it become? What an entanglement 
it would be! 

There is a longing for the time when the de- 
nomination shall emerge from the confusion, 
return to its own government, take up its own 
work, cultivate its own field, and restore real 
prosperity. 

The denomination should have no ecclesiastical 
power above it, and should not permit any out- 
side organization to interfere with it, though it 
should be fraternal to other churches and be 
ready to safely co-operate when it does not affect 
its own independence and welfare. 

The Church of late has witnessed two things: 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 109 



first, the taking of power from those who had a 
right to it and needed it for their duties in and 
to the Church; and, second, the assumption of 
power by persons whose right was not admitted 
by all. * 

Individuals and bodies of different kinds in 
various instances seem to have been doing as 
they pleased regardless of printed law as well as 
long established usage. Their rule has seemed 
to be: Do what you can do; and their principle 
seemed to be: If you can do it, it is right to do 
it. Do it if you have the physical force and can 
get a majority of votes to back it. If you can 
do it, when it is done, people will not know it is 
wrong, or no one will have courage to appeal, 
and, in the rush of events it soon will be for- 
gotten. Perhaps in some instances the indivi- 
duals themselves do not know enough of the law 
to know that what they did was illegal. 

Some seem not to know who are the authorities 
in the Church whose duty it is to interpret the 
law and to rule in cases, and pass on points of 
law, though the constitution and the statute law 
in the Book of Discipline clearly indicate them, 
and point out the duty of respecting them. 

Sometimes there is the cry of autocracy when 
the party is simply doing what the law requires 
him to do and the Church has ordered him to 
do, and, if he had not done it and in the way he 
did it, he would have been amenable before the 
Church courts. 

Autocracy is a much misused term and its use 
may expose the ignorance of the user. The best 



110 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



democrat has been called an autocrat, and while 
people are crying "Down with autocracy," an- 
other autocracy may be developed, and the worst 
form of autocracy is mobocracy either in Church 
or State. The crowd is seldom right; the excited 
crowd may be terribly wrong and do the grossest 
wrongs. The calm and well, advised people are 
apt to be right, but the unthinking and excited 
people are just as sure to be wrong and to do 
the wrong. These principles apply to the large 
church gathering as well as to the crowd on the 
street, and Church conventions may err as well 
as other assemblies. 

Power may assert itself suddenly. Tyrannies 
do arise, not only in an imperial government, but 
also in a free .republic, and the tyranny of the 
crowd or the mob is the worst form of tyranny, 
and tyranny is more likely in the wild and ex- 
cited mob than with the well informed emperor. 
So a free government, while it does not have an 
emperor, does not want the wild mob. Neither 
should anybody else. 

Why in many parts of the Church is the word 
bureaucracy used and used frequently of late? 
It is an unusual and unfamiliar word. What 
does it mean? What is bureaucracy? 

We turn to the dictionary and read : "Bureau- 
cracy — Government by bureaus; excessive mul- 
tiplication of, and concentration of power in, 
administrative bureaus. 2. The body of officials 
administering such bureaus, considered collec- 
tively. " There follows a note: "The principle 
of bureaucracy tends to official interference in 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. Ill 

many of the properly private affairs of life, and 
to the inefficient and obstructive performance of 
duty through minute subdivision of functions, 
inflexible formality and pride of place." 

Ah ! there is apt to be "pride of place" on the 
part of the official, there is likely to be "inflexible 
formality" and somebody else must bend, and 
there is "official interference in many of the 
properly private affairs of life by the bureau- 
crat." 

So that is bureaucracy. Well, where does that 
apply, and why are people in the Church now 
talking about the growth of bureaucracy? Where 
has the Church any bureau? 

Another says "What we mean is Board gov- 
ernment — the rise of Board government." 

Yes, we have boards, and when we say boards 
we mean the Benevolent Boards. 

But what can be meant by Board government? 
How can a Board govern? A Board has no right 
to make a law and it would seem that a Board 
cannot govern or command the Church. 

It may present its cause, give reasons and 
plead, but it cannot command or compel, and 
then it must leave it with the intelligence and 
conscience of the member, and allow him to act 
freely. 

There is another board, "The Board of Bish- 
ops," but if there is autocracy anywhere it is not 
exercised by the Board of Bishops. 

The Board of Bishops is composed of the Gen- 
eral Superintendents and they represent the gen- 
eral superintendency. These general officers 



112 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



form the great supervising council of the Church, 
and this they are by the constitution and the 
law. 

Short-sighted or misguided or far-sighted de- 
signers have to some extent broken up or inter- 
fered with the constitutional general superin- 
tendency of the Church by practically or actually 
limiting the General Superintendent Bishop to a 
designated location or area, and so caused him to 
be engrossed in local affairs that legitimately 
belong to the presiding elder or district superin- 
tendent. 

As a result, even in a few short years the 
bishops have lost to a large extent the personal 
knowledge of the general Church which the 
bishops formerly had, and, as the unconstitu- 
tionally restricted general superintendents do not 
by personal observation have the former exact 
though general view, it is not so easy to plan for 
the whole Church, though, if not interfered with, 
they could do very much as they have frequently 
demonstrated. 

This illegal restraint on the general superin- 
tending bishops has permitted a new situation, 
for, as they are being limited from the whole 
Church, opportunity is given to a Board which 
is for the whole Church, to plan for the entire 
Church, and take the whole Church in its grip, 
absorb the attention and activity of the Church,, 
and execute Church-wide measures. 

So it would be easy for one man to conceive a 
church-wide movement, and then, consulting with 
one, and with another, to suddenly surprise the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



113 



Church with a far-reaching scheme of which the 
bishops had not been advised, and then some 
one might turn around and say "The Bishops 
have no programme," notwithstanding the fact 
that the bishops have to turn in to make the 
scheme a success. 

So, by limiting the bishops to areas, there is 
given a chance for bureaucratic government, and 
for a time the dazed Church is amazed to find 
that a new governing power has asserted itself. 

But bureaucracy is no better than any other 
form of autocracy, and it is possible for the 
bureaucrat to be the worst kind of an autocrat.* 

The Methodist Episcopal Church has had what 
is known as the "Centenary," which was intended 
to commemorate the founding of the Missionary 
Society of the Church in 1819, and to celebrate 
missionary work for a hundred years. 

The idea was approved by the General Con- 
ference of 1916, which passed the following reso- 
lution: "Resolved, That the General Conference 
authorizes the setting aside of the years 1918 and 
1919 as centennial thanksgiving years, during 
which time the Board of Foreign Missions shall 
call upon the churches to review the splendid his- 
tory of the past hundred years with adoration 
and thanksgiving to Almighty God for his mani- 
fest guidance and blessing, and this Board is 
further authorized to make all necessary arrange- 

*For a study of Methodist Episcopacy see "The 
Bishops and the Supervisional System of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church," by Thomas B. Neely, Bishop of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. New York and Cin- 
cinnati: Methodist Book Concern, 1912, 8vo, pp. 350. 
8 



114 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



merits to enable the Church to signalize the cen- 
tennial year by special intercession and the out- 
pouring of gifts whereby the regular income of 
the Board may be doubled and special provision 
be made for property and equipment and endow- 
ments to the amount of five million dollars for 
our missions throughout the whole foreign world." 

In another action the General Conference said: 
"We have directed that the years 1918, 1919, be 
set aside for the Centenary celebration of the 
founding of our missionary work." There was 
also an action recognizing in this celebration the 
"Board of Home Missions," for home missions 
were part of the work of the society in 1819 and 
for many years later until the home mission 
department was separated from the foreign and 
made "The Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension." 

That the effort for money was prosecuted with 
scientific skill will be freely admitted, those man- 
aging it secured advances of millions of dollars 
on the well-known reliability particularly of the 
Board of Foreign Missions, whose draft was rec- 
ognized all over the world to be as good as gold, 
and these borrowed millions were freely spent in 
a literary propaganda, in securing experts, no 
matter to what denomination they belonged, and 
in employing a great host of special workers 
taken from the pastorate and elsewhere, in which 
movements the two missionary boards co-oper- 
ated through a joint committee. 

The result was a most remarkable subscription 
of one hundred and thirteen, or, possibly, one 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 115 



hundred and fifteen millions of dollars, to be paid 
in annual installments during five years, repeat- 
ing a certain amount each year in the five, and 
everywhere the asking from the local church was 
considered to be very large. 

Nothing like this effort and the response of the 
people had ever been known in the history of 
the religious denominations, and throughout the 
religious world there were many expressions of 
astonishment, 

One of the leaders in the movement has said 
it put Methodism, or the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, on the map of the world. Naturally, he 
was jubilant, but Methodism was on the map 
long before. John Wesley put it on the map in 
its very early days and the world has known 
about it ever since. This money matter did not 
put it on the map. 

This was only an incident, though a magnif- 
icent one. There are greater things in the life 
of a Church than money getting, though money 
is a necessity to support many departments of 
church work. 

The preaching of God's truth, the conversion 
of sinners, and the upbuilding of Christian char- 
acter are greater things than big collections, but 
the gathered money may be a great help, and, 
doubtless these millions may be the means of 
doing great good. 

With all this great money seeking what pro- 
portion of time and effort were given to what the 
General Conference called upon the Church to 
do, namely, to "review the splendid history of the 



116 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



past hundred years with adoration and thanks- 
giving to Almighty God for his manifest guidance 
and blessing" and what was the extent and in- 
tensity of the "special intercession"? 

One minister said to some laymen the giving 
in the Centenary made it the greatest period in 
the history of the Church, whereupon an intelli- 
gent layman, who knew Methodism, asked: "Why 
do you say that? Are the people increasing 
their attendance at the preaching services and 
the prayer meetings, and are they getting con- 
verted?" And the minister had to confess that 
the congregations were not growing and the 
churches were not successful in the matter of 
conversions, which meant the Church was not 
having real success. 

Some ask: When the General Conference desig- 
nated the two years, 1918 and 1919, as the years 
to be devoted to the Missionary Centenary, 
where did anybody get authority to spread it 
over a period of five years, pre-empting all that 
time, and during these years keeping the Church 
on a strain and occupied with this one matter? 

Some also ask: When the General Conference 
said the Board of Foreign Missions might seek 
Five Millions of Dollars, where did that Board, 
or any other Board, or anybody find the right 
to fix the sum at forty or fifty millions of dol- 
lars or more millions? 

Who authorized these changes? What creature 
of the General Conference is higher than the 
General Conference in making "rules and regu- 
lations" during the quadrennium? 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 117 



Who authorized the making of it a centenary 
for anything else than home and foreign missions 
which were grouped together in the society of 
1819? 

Who authorized the mixing up of the other 
Boards and Societies of the Church when it was 
not their centenary? 

When the law in the Book of Discipline fixed 
the method for each Society or Board to seek and 
receive the contributions from the Charges, who 
ignored those Disciplinary methods and mixed 
the boards and their causes into the centenary 
of the Board of Missions? Who had authority 
to do so? 

These Boards were not celebrating their cen- 
tenary, for they were not so authorized, and it 
was not their centenary as they did not begin in 
1819, and were not a hundred years old. 

The Commission on Finance has claimed broad 
powers in connection with the asking of the be- 
nevolent boards and claimed power to revise the 
askings, and the boards do submit their askings 
to this commission. It is said, however, the cen- 
tenary askings of the Boards of Missions were 
not approved by the Commission on Finance, 
and that the commission refused to permit the 
other societies or boards being grouped with the 
boards of missions in their centenary appeal, and 
voted against it. 

If this be true it looks like an improper con- 
fusion of boards and an ignoring of the law, for 
it would seem that even if a board had the gen- 
eral management, that management would be 



118 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



under the general and specific provision of the 
fixed law of the Church. 

Under the law of the Discipline no two distinct 
boards have a right to meet together and regard 
any action they may take as legally binding, 
because the joint meeting is without legality. 
Each board must act by itself and for itself and 
for nothing else, and yet resort appears to have 
been had to such a joint meeting. 

Recent conditions have compelled lovers of the 
Church to pause and ask many questions. Boards 
have done various things that boards heretofore 
never dreamed of doing. Because the thing may 
be new, however, may not prove a thing wrong, 
and the real question is as to its legality and the 
reading and the intention of the law. 

It is asked: By what right has a Secretary 
elected by the General Conference to do a cer- 
tain work under the specific law of the church, 
as in the Book of Discipline, to give his services 
to some other board, or some other organization 
either within or without the Church? 

Under what law does a Board of the Church 
permit its secretary or other officer, paid by the 
board, and elected by the General Conference 
for the service and work of the said board, to 
devote himself to interests and work of some 
other organization, and, particularly, an organi- 
zation or work outside the denomination? Espe- 
cially, by what authority when the law of the 
Church distinctly says the officer "shall be em- 
ployed exclusively in conducting" the work of 
this particular board and not any other. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 119 



Such things make for confusion in the work 
of the boards and greatly confuse the mind of 
the Church, and members wonder where the 
authority lies, and whether the Constitution and 
Discipline have ceased to function, and, also, 
that, if the general government has been set 
aside, whether a soviet government has been 
erected in its place, or is about to be created. 

Some of these things may be explainable, but, 
as long as the minds of the people are confused, 
many ill effects are possible. The confusion 
alone in the mind of the Church is an evil, and 
tends to destroy confidence, not in the Church, 
or as to individuals, but as to the new or seem- 
ingly new methods, and, if these things with the 
different understandings or misunderstandings 
should go on very long, the tendency would be 
toward a chaotic condition as to certain practical 
details. 

The principle has long been established that 
no one of the great General Boards can do local 
work within an Annual Conference in the United 
States, though it can provide for work within 
the Conference. This is a sort of home rule 
always conceded to and possessed by the locality. 
The Annual Conference carries on the local work 
under the regular Conference authorities. The 
general board raises the money and makes its 
appropriation to the Conference, and, it, as in 
the case of home missionary money, is appro- 
priated and disbursed under the action of the 
Conference, and the board has no revisional 
power and cannot say where it shall go so long 



120 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



as it is spent in harmony with the purposes of 
the fund. 

Under this principle, the general board has no 
right, and ought to have no right to establish 
local work and carry it on in a locality, for the 
local work is for the local jurisdiction within the 
Conference of the territory, and yet it is reported 
that a general board is establishing and manning 
local operations even of a secular character. 

It is even said that boards, their officers, or 
their agents have been interfering with minis- 
terial appointments and practically making them. 
Thus a bishop went to preside over his Confer- 
ence, and when he came to fix the appointments 
for certain places, he was informed that a repre- 
sentative of a board had fixed certain preachers 
for these places. 

Anyone fairly well versed in the polity of the 
Church knows of course that the fixing of minis- 
terial appointments is with the bishop and with 
him alone, and this is true even as to mission- 
aries for foreign fields, as years ago, the Board 
of Bishops ruled that "(1) The power of appoint- 
ment which is lodged in the Episcopacy applies 
to all Missionaries who are Ministers and no one 
can legally interfere with the exercise of this 
power by the Bishop in Charge. (2) The Board 
of Foreign Missions is authorized to pass upon 
the physical, intellectual, and moral fitness of 
one it is willing to support as a Missionary, but 
no Minister can be assigned to a Mission field or 
appointed to a charge or other work therein by 
anyone except the Bishop in Charge; and no 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 121 



Minister can be legally taken from an appoint- 
ment given him by a Bishop, for any service in 
a Mission field without the consent of the Bishop 
in Charge/' and this ruling was duly approved 
by the General Conference. 

If many undisputed reports are correct this 
principle has been violated over and over again 
in the last few years in connection with various 
agencies, and particularly with recent board 
activities, financial operations, and outside 
organizations, and multitudes of pastors have 
been taken most irregularly and illegally from 
their regular work, and that ministers have con- 
sidered the invitation from these boards, their 
officers, or other bodies, as sufficient to justify 
their immediate disrupting their pastoral rela- 
tions without any authority from their bishop. 
This is conceding power of ministeral appoint- 
ment to persons and bodies other than the bish- 
ops, where the Constitution of the Church lodges 
the appointing power, and this is anarchy. 

By what authority are outside organizations, 
which are not specified or recognized in the law 
of the Church, made centers of authority which 
the ministers and members of this church are 
expected to obey, which is permitted to summon 
to its service ministers and members, and which 
is allowed practically or actually to enter the 
churches and other organizations of the denomi- 
nation and to use the individuals and machinery 
of the denomination for its own ends? There is 
no such authority, it is an improper intrusion, 
and should not be tolerated. 



122 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



Further, ministers of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church who go into these outside operations 
imperil or destroy their legal standing when they 
go without legal permission. 

What authority has a Church Board to recog- 
nize any such outside organization and to en- 
tangle the Church with it? There is no law that 
permits any board to do so, and as the law speci- 
fies what the board shall do, it limits it so that 
it cannot do anything beyond these specified 
duties. For a board to do so is a usurpation of 
authority as it usurps an authority which vests 
in the General Conference and the whole Church, 
and the humblest individual in the Church has 
a right to protest. Indeed, the body of the 
Church should not only enter a protest, but it 
should promptly demand a discontinuance of 
this usurpation on the part of a Board whether 
it be the Board of Foreign Missions, or the 
Board of Home Missions, or any other board. 

No outside organization has any right to use 
the mechanism of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church and exploit its membership in an effort 
to raise money for that outside organization, or 
for any other purpose, and no Church Board has 
any authority to authorize or permit any outside 
organization to so work within, or use, the 
Church, in that or any other way. 

It logically, and legally, follows that the min- 
ister or the individual member is under no obli- 
gation to submit to the demands or requests of 
such an outside organization or its agents, and, 
further, a minister or a member, has no right to 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 123 



support within the Church such requests or de- 
mands from an outside organization, when the 
Church law indicates the Church channels 
through which Church contributions for such 
benevolences should flow. 

Some of these outside organizations are at- 
tempting to use the Church for their own 
schemes, and thus are attempting a sort of de- 
nominational control. Actually, considering the 
practical tendencies, whether they know it or not, 
they are attempts to disorganize the denomina- 
tion, and put it under the practical direction of 
the outside power. 

That tends toward weakness and death in the 
denomination, for as the outside bodies use it 
as an agency they can exploit, in some way 
handling its money, and more or less directing 
its operations, they are drawing vitality from 
the Church, and that, long continued, or con- 
tinued at all, ultimates in weakness and tends to 
decay and death. 

The strange thing about it is that a number 
of schemes of this character are promoted by 
men who call themselves Methodist Episcopa- 
lians, and are drawing salaries which they are 
paid to work for and within the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and some of them hold official 
positions. A simple-minded man who knew 
these facts might, in some cases, imagine that 
these individuals were more something else than 
they were Methodist Episcopalians, and might 
ask what right such individuals, as well as 
boards, have to promote these outside move- 



124 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



ments, and bring their control in any degree into 
the Church, and exploit the Church in their in- 
terest, especially when the Church is not gain- 
ing as heretofore, and needs to husband the 
strength it still has, and to rapidly gain increased 
and increasing vigor. 

Surely every member of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church should put his own Church first 
among the denominations, and before all merely 
human organizations, and, especially, should 
officials of the Church who are elected to office 
and paid higher salaries than the average pastor, 
that they may with special efficiency promote 
the interests of their own denomination. 

What right has a Church Board to take the 
money which the people contribute for a certain 
church benevolence, and which the board is to 
receive and disburse for that purpose, and use it 
for something else, for example, to support or 
back another organization which is outside the 
Church and not controlled by the Church? 

The lawyer says that is a misappropriation, 
or diversion, of funds, which is a criminal offense 
which carries a heavy penalty. The average man 
declares it is a betrayal of a trust, that the 
money was given in trust for one purpose, and, 
to use it for any other purpose, would be a be- 
trayal of a sacred trust. Any man would say it 
was wrong. A blunt man might say it is dis- 
honest. The court would sentence the convicted 
party to the penitentiary for a specified period 
of time. 

What right then would the Board of Foreign 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



125 



Missions have to take money it had received for 
foreign missions and use it in aiding an outside 
organization, or what right would the Board of 
Home Missions and Church Extension to use 
home mission funds in the interest of any other 
cause or institution, and, particularly, one out- 
side the denomination? In each case the fund is 
denominational and for a specific purpose, and 
in each instance the use would not be for the 
denomination, and would not be for the purpose 
for which the money had been contributed. 

What right then had the Board of Foreign 
Missions to take $750,000 contributed for its use 
in foreign mission work, and with it underwrite 
to that extent the outside so-called Interchurch 
World Movement? And, in the same way, what 
right had the Board of Home Missions and 
Church Extension to take $200,000 contributed 
for its use in home ^missions, and with it under- 
write to that extent the outside so-called Inter- 
church World Movement? 

Not a dollar in either case was contributed for 
the Interchurch World Movement, but every 
dollar was placed in the treasury of the boards 
for the purposes specified, namely, on the one 
hand, the foreign missions of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, and, on the other hand, for the 
home missions of the same church, and for no 
other purpose. What right then had either board 
to use this money in the interest of another pur- 
pose, namely, the Interchurch World Movement 9 
Plainly, neither board had any right at all. 

Some sophistical person may say it is not pro- 



126 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



posed to make a direct gift of these large amounts 
of money to the Interchurch Movement but 
merely to underwrite the organization for these 
sums. But that is not the point. To underwrite 
creates an obligation to pay when a certain situa- 
tion arises. It is a promise to pay these amounts 
of money at the moment they can legally be 
demanded, and it so places the money subject to 
that demand. 

For an authority we turn to the Century Dic- 
tionary, and find: (Underwrite — To write below 
or under; to agree to pay by signing one's name, 
to agree or undertake by setting one's name to 
(a policy of insurance) to become answerable 
for certain losses specified therein. 

So when one or the other of these boards 
underwrite this outside organization known as 
the Interchurch World Movement, the board 
backs it with this large sum of money, specified, 
and promises to pay it according to the terms of 
the instrument signed. 

The sophist persists by saying the money may 
never have to be paid, it may never be demanded, 
or it may never be pressed. That, however, is 
a confession that there is an obligation, and 
an admission that payment may be demanded, 
and, if demanded, the money must be paid. So 
that the possibility of its not being demanded, is 
a most serious risk, and the money of the Church 
is staked on a mere peradventure, or the merest 
chance, and the Church Boards might be accused 
of an act that looks like gambling with Church 
money. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



127 



It is using trust funds entrusted to the care 
of Church Boards for a purpose not intended by 
the contributors, and risking it on a contingency 
in the interest of an outside cause or institution, 
with the promise to pay it on legal demand, and, 
if paid the foreign missions of the Church would 
lose three-quarters of a million dollars, and the 
home missions would lose a quarter of a million 
of dollars, and the Church would be accused of 
a betrayal of a solemn trust. 

In case of proposed misappropriation of Church 
funds any member or contributor could go into 
court and apply for an injunction to restrain the 
parties implicated, and the court would grant the 
injunction. Further, in case of an actual diver- 
sion of funds, the parties could be brought into 
court and, if convicted, a severe penalty could be 
inflicted. 

Now that the Centenary subscription has been 
secured, why should it be necessary to build a 
large extra organization at an expense of about 
a million dollars a year, say for five or six years, 
to gather in the money, when the Church, in its 
twenty thousand pastors, possesses the mechan- 
ism to do this work with little expense, and 
when, to insure efficiency, there are the district 
superintendents and the bishops, who are the 
legal supervisors? 

When an appeal was made to the people of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church to give many mil- 
lions to the "Centenary," and the people sub- 
mitted with great patience to the pressure and 
rush of the "Centenary drive," and were told the 



128 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



collections would be carried through five years, 
and they subscribed from one hundred and 
twelve to one hundred and fifteen millions of dol- 
lars, does any one suppose they expected that be- 
fore the five years were up and their subscrip- 
tions were paid, they would be subjected to other 
drives for other large sums of money? Yet such 
drives have been suggested to be made within 
these years and soon. Will they submit to it? 
Especially will they submit to it at the command 
of an outside organization? A cautious man 
would not write it as a strong probability. 

The word "drive" is an unpleasant and detest- 
able word when used in connection with the 
Church of Christ. Then there is a viciousness 
in what is called a "drive." It suggests the 
"round up" of cattle, and the lash or goad, as 
though the driven were not human beings but 
lower animals. 

Unhappy word! Unhappy fact that brings 
unhappiness, as pastors are driven so that they 
cannot perform fully their proper work! How 
long will self-respecting pastors stand "drives" 
that take up their time and energy, and interfere 
with their normal work? 

What right has a board, or board official, or 
agent, to command any pastor within his work 
as laid down in the Book of Discipline? There 
is no such right. There is no law for any board, 
or any officer of a board, or any emergency 
organization, to take control in any degree of 
the pulpit or services of the local church. A 
pastor could refuse to permit such intrusion. 



PRESEXT PERILS OF METHODISM. 129 



A "'drive/' that takes actual or practical con- 
trol of the pastors and the local churches, does 
not belong to the legal or economic system of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. The drive that 
rushes preachers and people out of breath, so to 
speak, so that they cannot think calmly, is not- 
justified by the ecclesiastical system, and is likely 
to produce a detrimental reaction, and ultimately 
to greatly injure the denomination. To put drive 
upon drive is a cruelty on both preachers and 
people. 

That would suggest dumb cattle and the lash, 
but what right has anyone to crack a whip over 
a pastor or the entire Church? 

Some say many in the ministry are influenced 
by fear. If that is so, the fear is not of the 
bishops, for there is a growing belief that the 
bishops are restrained in their administration by 
forces other than the law and the constitution. 
The uncertain other forces cause the greatest 
apprehension, and now this is being increased by 
his experience with the "drive" and the forces 
back of it. 

Conferences and conventions of ministers are 
now protesting against some of the "new develop- 
ments." and, since we began this writing, a most- 
notable statement was adopted at a meeting of 
two hundred and fifty pastors of New York City 
and vicinity, held on the eighth of March, 1920. 

In this statement there is an appeal to the peo- 
ple to help the ministers ''shield the pastoral 
office from the many influences which tend to 
divert the minister from the great object of his 

9 



130 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



calling or to prevent him from achieving its real 
purpose." 

It specifies adverse influences, as for example: 
i 'The ever-increasing detail to which he is con- 
stantly being driven by demands for all manner 
of reports, surveys and canvasses related only 
remotely, if at all, to his specific mission, and the 
almost endless correspondence and petty detail 
growing out of the manifold and ever-multiply- 
ing organizations of the modern Church." 

And again: "In view of the disturbing in- 
fluences here set forth we must deprecate the 
multiplication of offices and officers in either con- 
stitutional or extra- constitutional relationships 
and the continual appeal, exhortation, and com- 
mand of said officers to the pastors to devote 
their energies to plans which seem necessary to 
justify the appointment and continuance of such 
officers, but which in effect destroy the true lead- 
ership of the men immediately responsible for 
the life of the Church."* 



*See The Christian Advocate, March 18, 1920, p. 397. 



CHAPTER V 



THE REMEDY 

The survey of undesirable conditions in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, though brief, ought 
to be exceedingly impressive. Much more might 
have been specified, but enough has been stated 
to impress and arouse anyone and everyone who 
truly loves the church. 

Without attempting a full recapitulation of 
the unfavorable and perilous conditions, it will 
be sufficient to recall a few of the facts that re- 
veal weaknesses and dangers, and show the 
presence of injurious and positively evil forces. 

The numerical losses in British Methodism and 
in the Methodist Episcopal Church are them- 
selves very alarming, but back of them are 
causative facts and forces which account for the 
loss in numbers and which will continue to pro- 
duce similar and additional losses in the future. 

The reduced attendance at the preaching and 
prayer services, the fewer proportionate con- 
versions, the diminution of religious seriousness, 
the difficulty in reaching the unconverted, and 
the manifest reduction of spirituality in the 
church itself, ought to awaken the church to the 
presence of positive peril, and, that the church 
has not been aroused from its apathy, is the 
plainest proof of the existence of a most danger- 
ous condition of deterioration. 



(131) 



132 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



Then with the loss of spirituality there has 
been a loss of spirit. This of course religiously 
does not rank as high as spirituality, but the 
man without spirit is sure to be a failure, and 
the church that has lost its spirit is without an 
essential source of success. The church has lost 
a large proportion of its former enthusiasm and 
the loss is manifested in many ways. Even the 
congregations in many instances look the loss, 
for there is an absence of the air of hope and 
victory that makes the observer feel that he is 
not in the presence of a conquering host, but of 
an army that has lost its morale and is doubt- 
ful of its cause and the result of the next battle. 
So there is a loss of joy both present and antic- 
ipatory. A church without spirit and enthusiasm 
cannot be a winning church. 

That the same people who lack spirit and en- 
thusiasm in religious matters show these qualities 
in material, financial and humanitarian matters 
makes the situation all the more sad. 

Something has robbed the church of a consid- 
erable proportion of its old enthusiastic spirit, 
and that tends to weaken and kill the real church. 

Errors have crept in, the former clearness of 
vision has been dimmed, and there have been 
many departures from original righteousness, and 
these things are robbing the church of spiritual 
power and preventing its real success. 

These things are absolutely appalling and call 
for speedy and strong action. For the moment 
they may fill the heart with dismay but the 
church should not be hopeless. Somewhere there 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 133 



is wisdom that can plan relief and show the way 
forward, it may be by going backward and doing 
the first works over again. In addition to human 
power and wisdom, there are wisdom and power 
divine, and the Divine Spirit that can transform 
the heart and life of a repentant sinner, can 
transform a penitent church. Even for a back- 
slidden church that casts out the evil and looks 
for divine guidance there is bright hope and 
the certainty of restoration. 

What then is the remedy for certain specific 
conditions that have been observed? What will 
meet the difficulties? In addition we may ask, 
what remedies have been tried? 

Strange to say, some have suggested that for 
the worldliness of the church, more worldliness 
should be openly introduced into the church, 
and because of the unspirituality in the church 
more of the unspiritual should be brought into 
the church and more conspicuously. This seems 
singular logic, and reminds one of the teaching 
of the school of medicine that like cures like. 
That, however, is in the physical, but it would 
seem to be different in the moral and spiritual 
realm. To make the bad worse does not seem to 
be good morals or good philosophy. 

In another place we referred to the losses of 
the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Great Brit- 
ain, and now the statistics of the last year show 
the loss of 3.635 members; 1.581 on trial; 4,473 
juniors: 7.451 Sunday-school teachers: and 29.- 
564 Sunday-school scholars. Some losses are to 
be attributed to the war. but the decreases have 



134 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



been going on for thirteen successive years, so 
that the war is not the real and continuing cause. 
Referring to the steady losses, the "Journal of 
the Wesley Bible Union," published in England, 
says: "There can be no doubt in the minds of 
reasonable men that the decline of Wesleyan 
Methodism all over the land is due chiefly to the 
attacks upon the Bible, and the false teaching 
of our time ... If our higher critics and 
new theologists had definitely plotted to ruin 
Methodism they could not very well have done 
more than they are doing today." The same 
publication says: "In the interval since the last 
Conference, our conviction has deepened concern- 
ing the extreme peril of Wesleyan Methodism. 
The bold advocacy in the Methodist Press of 
views, that throw discredit upon the Bible and 
antagonize many of the central doctrines of the 
Methodist Evangel, distinctly reveals how prev- 
alent the Modernist Apostasy is. The tendency 
of that Apostasy is in the direction of a complete 
denial of the teachings of the Bible, under the 
profession of adherence to the Christian Re- 
ligion;" and then the editor asks: "Will the 
Wesleyan Methodists of this generation allow 
the heritage which they have received from their 
fathers to be transformed into an instrument for 
the propaganda of doctrines that represent Jesus 
as a teacher of errors that have misled the cen- 
turies? Shall the organization and property of 
our church be converted into an organ for the 
dissemination of doctrines which, while they 
flatter our Lord with high-sounding titles of 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 135 

laudation, at the same time discrown Him; 
affirming that He was so emptied of all Divine 
attributes, that His teachings were so mingled 
with the errors of His age and nation, that only 
skillful criticism can separate the wheat from the 
chaff in His words, and determine what is true 
and what is false in what He taught." 

These pertinent words might be repeated else- 
where than in England, and the reader will have 
no difficulty in making the right application. 
Applied to England they go far to explain cer- 
tain conditions in the Wesleyan body, where 
there has been a loss in membership, a loss in 
church and sunday-school attendance, and a loss 
in spiritual power. 

Anyone might think the right remedy was 
apparent, namely, the revival of sound Wesleyan 
teaching, and a reintroduction of Wesleyan 
theology, but everyone should be amazed at the 
measures that have been resorted to in England 
to attract and win back the young people and 
the masses who do not attend the services as in 
former years. 

One instance may be given. In a certain 
church in a certain place in England, that need 
not be named, the minister and the officials faced 
the fact that they were losing the people. The 
question was how they could regain them or se- 
cure others to increase the attendance on the 
services, and also the membership of the church. 
Shades of Wesley! It was suggested that they 
utilize dancing and similar things to bring the 
people to the church who used to flock to the 



136 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



place simply to hear the simple, but strong, 
preaching of Wesleyanism. Instead of improv- 
ing the preaching and increasing the spirituality 
of the church, it was proposed to win, not by the 
Gospel, but by the secular diversions of the ir- 
religious world. The pastor favored, but hes- 
itated, unless the church membership consented, 
and a meeting was called, and the members 
voted that in the week-time the sunday-school 
room should be opened for dancing, card-playing, 
and smoking, and that was done by the suc- 
cessors to the victorious followers of Wesley! 
Something is intellectually and morally wrong 
with people who thus permit the desecration of 
the house of God, and it is no wonder that there 
is decay in British Wesleyanism. 

Such methods are worse than short-sighted. 
They have neither sound philosophy nor com- 
mon sense. The irreligion in the church cannot 
be changed or compensated for by pandering to 
irreligious and worldly desires, and making the 
church like the pleasure-seeking and secular 
world will not bring into the church the pleasure 
lovers who do not attend the church, for the 
church cannot compete with the outside profes- 
sionals whose business it is to furnish worldly 
pleasures with the most favorable surroundings. 

It is not the function of the church to amuse, 
and in that the clown can beat the church. Nei- 
ther is it the function of the church to supply 
certain social pleasures, though it can and does 
permit opportunities of refined sociability. 
When it comes to dancing, card-playing, and the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 137 



smoker the church should draw a line and leave 
them on the outside. 

In facing unspiritual conditions in the church 
and irreligious and indifferent conditions outside 
the church, the Methodist Episcopal Church must 
exercise good judgment, and be true to its best 
traditions, and check those who are in danger of 
resorting to insufficient methods, and even to 
those that are unwise, worldly, and injurious. 

One organization which is not a part of the 
economy of the church, and has never been estab- 
lished by the General Conference, but somehow 
has sprung from what is termed the centenary 
movement, has proposed a plan to attract more 
people to the Sunday evening preaching services. 
This new organization contains a proportion of 
young and enthusiastic people who may be back 
of the proposition, but it is hard to find out what 
the said organization has to do with this mat- 
ter at all, for it is presumed to exist for the pur- 
pose of gathering in money subscribed for the 
Centenary of 1919. 

Its proposition is for the pastor to introduce 
into the Sunday evening preaching service mov- 
ing pictures, and proposes to furnish the films, 
and perhaps other paraphernalia, for rent or 
sale, which means a manufacturing and com- 
mercial transaction, which would appear to be 
unauthorized by any proper church authority. 

When its business is to collect the money sub- 
scribed for the centenary objects, it does not ap- 
pear that the committee has any right to go into 
this show business and the commercial enter- 



138 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



prise it involves, or any right to direct or suggest 
what the pastors shall have in their Sunday 
evening services. What right has it even to inti- 
mate to pastors that they give up their Sunday 
evening discourse, and desecrate the Sunday 
evening and the church of God by establishing 
a Sunday show consisting of movies? And what 
right has this committee, which people think 
exists by church authority, to send out to pastors 
a copied article, declaring in substance that the 
period for Sunday night sermons is over, and the 
thing to do now is to substitute the Sunday night 
movie? It does not seem to be the business of 
this committee, though someone seems to want 
to make a business out if it. 

The very proposition is a tacit assertion that 
the kind of preaching in the churches has failed, 
or that the Gospel has lost its power, and any 
minister who would discard the Sunday evening 
sermons and substitute Sunday night moving 
pictures would be confessing that his preaching 
was a failure. 

That does not mean that the Gospel is a fail- 
ure, but the failure is in the preacher and his 
method of preaching, and the preacher, in aban- 
doning the sermon and substituting the picture 
show, would be advertising his own shame, and 
confessing that he had not and could not suc- 
cessfully use the Gospel. 

Then the resort to the sensational substitute in 
the form of the moving picture would simply 
create an argument for the professional movie 
manager who wants to run his show on Sunday 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 139 



as well as on other days in the week, and he 
would argue that as the church had sanctioned 
the moving pictures in preference to sermons on 
Sunday, he should have the legal right also to 
keep his money-making exhibition open on Sun- 
day. That might influence legislators, the laws 
might be made to favor the professional movie 
manager, and the Sunday show at the other cor- 
ner would draw away the crowd the church 
wanted to get, for the church picture could not 
compete with the spicy secular show. 

Showing pictures on a screen is not what Christ 
meant by preaching. Jesus said "Go . . . 
preach," and his followers went forth and 
preached, and ever since the world has had the 
essential idea of preaching, as Christ and his 
disciples understood it. 

The show may convey some lessons, but the 
show business is not preaching. Preaching is the 
vocalization of the truth. Preaching is speaking 
to the ear of the listener, though the preacher 
may create a mental picture in the mind of the 
hearer, as Jesus did. The moving picture is not 
Christ's idea or intention in preaching. Preach- 
ing is the vocal presentation of Gospel truth, and 
the preacher is the living man speaking to living 
men, and nothing can take the place of the 
preacher uttering Christ's truth, with his soul in 
his changing countenance and his tone. 

Will those who are trying to supplant the Sun- 
day evening preaching by moving pictures, pro- 
gress a little further and recommend the churches 
to imitate the English congregation by introduc- 



140 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



ing the dance, the card table, and the smoker, to 
attract to the church those who have been pass- 
ing by on the other side? 

These things will not do. "Go 
preach!" Preach! Preach! Preach the Gospel 
of Christ in its purity and with the spirit of 
Jesus. Preach as Christ intended. 

Then some have inaugurated another idea, 
namely, to have the church go extensively, in 
many places, into the old clothes business, to get 
old clothes, and old shoes, and, after mending 
them, sell them to those who wish to buy, es- 
pecially the poor. This might spring up in an 
isolated place and grow naturally, as a local ex- 
ception, but it is a very different thing for the 
church in many places to go into this which is 
a legitimate business and compete with regular 
old clothes dealers. But that is secular business, 
and there is no authoritative promise assuring 
us that that is the way to convert the world. 
Secular business is not the work of a church. 
If an individual member wants to carry it on 
on his own account, that may be another matter. 

Some say the thing to do is to democratize the 
church. That is the cry of a demagogue or one 
who is not familiar with the facts, for the church 
generally is a great democracy. That is true 
of the Protestant churches generally, and par- 
ticularly of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
The cry for democracy in the church really 
means mobocracy, and the church is the one in- 
stitution where that should not be permitted to 
enter. What is needed in the church is authority, 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 141 



recognition of authority, respect for authority, 
and obedience to authority. 

Some say, get rid of formality, when there 
is no excessive formality. In some instances the 
demand is from a misunderstanding or misuse of 
the word. With some informality means crude- 
ness, and they actually suggest the adoption of 
rudeness to attract the rude. Rudeness, how- 
ever, would drive away the refined, while even 
the uncultured want a church of refinement. 
God has established order and religion is orderly. 
The church needs an orderly and dignified serv- 
ice, and no letting down of the bars of real 
propriety will attract, hold, and benefit the 
masses or the classes. The church should ob- 
serve the proprieties and maintain dignity. John 
Wesley was the pink of propriety and to this 
day he remains the typical Methodist. 

Others say there should be no distinction be- 
tween the church and the world, and no distinc- 
tion between the clergy and the laity. If that 
were brought about there would be no clergy and 
no church. Some maintain the notion that there 
should be no distinction between the sacred and 
the secular, but then there would be no sacred, 
but God made the distinction between the sacred 
and the secular, and the church must stand for 
these distinctions, and the people the church 
seeks, know it. 

Others demand more of the sensational, but 
sensationalism palls on the public, and all stim- 
ulation has its reaction and exhaustion. What 
some want to make the church popular is to 



142 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



take religion out of the church, and so make it 
easy for all to go to church, but then there 
would be no church. 

None of these things will meet the case; nei- 
ther will similar suggestions. If we seek the real 
remedy, the church must go down to fundamental 
facts and find the fundamental needs. 

First, there is lack of knowledge of Methodism 
and of Methodist history. This condition must 
be met. There must be a revival of precise 
Methodistic knowledge so that those who are in 
the church shall know how and why it came to 
be, why and what it is, and what and why it 
should be. There should begin at once a 
Methodistic renaissance, and the ministers must 
lead the way to Methodism's new birth by a 
knowledge of its history. They must make it 
a special study and inspire others to do the same. 
They must induce the people to read the church's 
history and literature, and they must reach the 
people by addresses, lectures, and sermons. They 
must instruct individuals and congregations, and 
they have great opportunities in young people's 
meetings, in prayer meetings, and in the Sunday 
services, and especially in their probationers' 
classes. In that way a proper denominational 
basis will be laid, and a spirit of intelligent 
loyalty will be engendered. In this work the 
church editors could have an important part. 

Second, the lack of knowledge of the polity 
of the church should be met and overcome. The 
general system and the particular laws should be 
made plain and familiar to all, even to the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 143 



youth of the church. This may be brought about 
by the distribution of the Book of Discipline 
and the study of the same, by addresses, and 
in other ways similar to those just indicated. 

Third, the knowledge of the doctrines of 
Methodism should be greatly increased.* These 
doctrines may be presented in sermons and ad- 
dresses and taught in other ways, and in this age 
the good doctrinal preacher is likely to be pop- 
ular; first, because such preaching would be a 
novelty; and, second, because the hearers would 
recognize the fact that they were receiving sub- 
stantial and most valuable knowledge. To evoke 
appreciation it is only necessary to give system- 
atic presentations and fairly full treatment of 
doctrinal truth as interpreted by Methodism. 
This can be done without the ponderosity of the 
old-schoolmen, or the prolixity of the preachers 
of three centuries ago, because Wesleyan doc- 
trine is both Scriptural and simple, and so simple 
that a child can understand it, and yet so pro- 
found and powerful that it has won its way 
against great odds and has become the prevailing 
theology of the evangelical churches. 

There is need today for a revival of the preach- 
ing and teaching of this Wesleyan theology in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church and in other bodies 
of the same ecclesiastical family. The catechism 
should come into more frequent use, the Sunday- 

*See "Doctrinal Standards of Methodism, including 
the Methodist Episcopal Churches," by Bishop 
Thomas B. Neely, D.D., LL.D., of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, New Ytork: Fleming H. Revell 
Company, 8vo, pp. 355. 



144 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



school should faithfully do its part, and the 
preacher should plainly proclaim the doctrines 
of his denomination. 

One of the most important things is to keep 
up and strengthen the spirituality of the Church. 
There is a general conviction that for this there 
is a special need at this very time. One may ask, 
What has become of the old emphasis on a con- 
scious personal religious experience? Further, 
one may ask what has become of that personal 
experience? Why do not more tell of their per- 
sonal religious experiences? Since the decay of 
class meetings and love feasts has the relation 
of religious experiences become a lost habit? Or 
do only a few have the experience itself? Who 
took off the old emphasis and the old expecta- 
tion? Who can bring it back? The pastors and 
the members can bring it back, by drawing near 
to God and securing the consciousness of salva- 
tion and the joy of salvation, and, when they 
have the positive and conscious experience, they 
will be able to tell it, and when the members 
generally have that experience and talk about 
it the old time spiritual fervor and power will 
return to the church and through it bless the 
community. 

One kind of religious enthusiast can be spared 
from this work of spiritual promotion, and spared 
for his lack of judgment, though he may have a 
degree of religion. He is the one who goes around 
in a perfunctory way, shouting that there is go- 
ing to be in the near future the greatest revival — 
the greatest revival the church has ever seen, or 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 145 



that the world has ever seen. How do such men 
know that? Where do they get their informa- 
tion? They talk as though the source was di- 
vine revelation, and therefore they cry out as 
though in imitation of the ancient Hebrew 
prophets. Their air and emphasis is of infallibil- 
ity, but they are far from being infallible. We 
have heard such at intervals during a long period 
of time and we have never known them to be 
true prophets. Their announced revivals never 
came. They are modern false prophets, and, be- 
cause of the anticipations they raise, which are 
doomed to disappointment, they do more harm 
than good. The church can afford to gently 
silence these false prophets. 

The surest way to secure a revival is the faith- 
ful preaching of the Gospel and the personal 
following up of the impression, both in public 
and in private, and this succeeded by the greatest 
possible care in the nurture and protection of 
the convert. 

The pastor is the one who must lead in the 
spiritual work and any improvement in churcli 
conditions as they are, must take in the minister, 
who preaches the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, 
calls sinners to repentance, and guides the people 
in the Christian life. 

We do not claim for him sacerdotal sanctity, 
but he is a separated man in a distinctive sphere. 
The church teaches that he is a man of God, 
called of God to minister in spiritual things, and 
of a class different from the general membership. 
He is, therefore, to be regarded accordingly. 
10 



146 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



His responsibilities are very great and the 
faithful pastor carries very heavy burdens, 
and to do his work well it is necessary that the 
people shall hold up his hands and give him their 
sympathy. He should not be crippled in any 
way, but should ever be aided. He should be 
encouraged and permitted to have a feeling of 
freedom such as every leader should possess 
and every commander of the hosts absolutely 
needs. 

The church must strengthen the pastor and 
the pastorate. Here is the great arm of the 
church, and the pastorate should never be dis- 
counted but always honored. 

The pastor today is being robbed of his 
initiative. He is being taught that he must wait 
for some man, or a group of men, to tell him 
what to do, how to do it, and when to do it; and 
this has gone to such an extreme that the pastor 
would be justified in asking those who assume 
such power by what authority they do so. 

The rule the pastor is to work by is the Book 
of Discipline, and not the notion or impulse of a 
board, or the officers of a board, either in the 
local or the general church. 

In some things the pastor needs liberty to de- 
termine for himself when and how he shall act, 
and the church needs that every charge shall 
feel the trained and sanctified individuality and 
leadership of the preacher-in-charge, as the old 
law used to call him. Otherwise, the pastor, con- 
trolled by forces beyond the law, becomes a mere 
machine, and works like a machine, and with as 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 147 



little soul. Under such circumstances he cannot 
be at his best, and cannot do his best. 

A Methodist Episcopal pastor is not a hired 
man, paid so much an hour or so much a day, 
and who can be discharged at the pleasure of 
those who pay him his day's wages. He is a 
minister of the word of God, chosen from the 
ranks of the laity, and by the laity, to be a min- 
ister, and appointed by the duly empowered au- 
thorities of the church, who, themselves, are 
elected by the laity, and the charge to which he 
is sent, is, under the law, to give him a support. 
He is not a hired man any more than the gen- 
eral who is designated to lead troops into a bat- 
tle. He is a designated pastor appointed by the 
superior authority. 

But he is paid by the local church, says one. 
Not exactly. He is supposed to be supported by 
the charge, though often it is far from being a 
reasonable support. The church furnishes the 
money, but, on the other hand, the pastor gives 
his service, which, at least, makes a balance, 
and he goes where he is sent. 

There is no objection on the part of the au- 
thorities to the laymen giving information, ex- 
pressing a judgment, or even suggesting a pref- 
erence in the right way and at the right time, but 
all the same, the pastor goes by the appointment 
of the authority that must consider the needs of 
all the places, and the merits and claims of all 
the preachers. 

The preacher, who, in the Methodist Episcopal 
system, gives up his natural right of choice of a 



148 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



place to labor, and who submits his case to the 
appointing power, is surely entitled to the 
equitable care of the disinterested authorities 
and of the local churches. It is a mutual con- 
tract between the ministry and the laity, and 
the laymen agree to submit the adjustments to 
the bishops, who are the legal authorities in the 
making of pastoral appointments, and the en- 
tire church agrees to the same. All ought to keep 
the contract, in letter and in spirit, and care for 
the pastors. The system knows nothing of a 
call, much less a call that has any legal power, 
and with the minister in such a system of pas- 
toral supply, no call should be necessary, and 
no pastoral appointment should be dependent on 
a call from a local church, but the minister 
should receive equitable treatment, in view of 
his ability and service, with or without a call. 
The modest, but able and faithful preacher, who 
was unnoticed, while calls for others were being 
sought and worked, should not be compelled to 
suffer on that account. 

If the church generally and individually does 
not properly care for the pastor, preserve his 
independence, and give him confidence that he 
will receive equitable treatment in his appoint- 
ments, the church cannot have its full measure 
of possible prosperity. To provide a pension for 
him when he is old and disabled is most praise- 
worthy, but what he needs during his active 
ministry is to him and the church vastly more 
important. 

Speaking of pastors, we should not forget that 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 149 



only suitable men should be selected for the 
ministry, and, in this day, particularly, the An- 
nual Conferences should only admit well qual- 
ified men, and the matter of qualification goes 
far beyond mere scholarship, though that should 
be required. The Annual Conferences must se- 
lect only those who can and will do the full 
work of a Methodist Episcopal preacher. If the 
candidate is willing, but not competent, he should 
not be admitted. If he could do it, but it is 
plain he will not do it, he should not be received. 
What the church needs is not a man who might 
do in some other denomination but one qualified 
for the work of the Methodist Episcopal minis- 
try, conform to the Methodist Episcopal system, 
and preach Methodist Episcopal doctrines. 

The Board of Examiners in the Annual Con- 
ference should examine the ministerial candi- 
dates not merely on their attitude toward the 
doctrines and discipline of the church, but di- 
rectly on the doctrines themselves, and likewise 
on the Discipline. 

The candidate should be made to tell what 
the doctrines are and to give his understanding 
of them. In that way the examiners would get 
the expression of the candidate and learn what 
he knows and believes. In the same way he 
should be examined on the polity of the church. 
To merely ask whether he believes the doctrines 
does not draw enough from the candidate, for it 
might turn out that de did not really know or 
understand the doctrines which he thought he 
believed. 



150 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



Loyalty to the church organization ought to 
be ascertained by the examiners themselves. 
The Conference has a right to know for itself, 
for disloyalty tends to disruption sooner or later. 
It is not safe to admit young men who start with 
an antagonistic attitude toward the doctrines 
and discipline of the church, and have a desire 
to weaken, evade, or destroy the system, and it 
is not honest for such to make the promises and 
take the vows the law requires, and if they are 
dishonest, even mentally dishonest, and take the 
vows with mental reservations, they are unfit 
to be ministers. 

No reputable organization knowingly admits 
to its membership those who at the time are an- 
tagonistic and disloyal, for there is no surer way 
of revolutionizing a body, whether it be a church 
or some other kind of an organization. Of 
course, no one should wish to come into a body 
which he dislikes, or feels contempt for, whether 
he manifests his feeling or not. 

How some got into the ministry of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church is hard to understand, 
and how they stay in is quite as difficult to com- 
prehend. The candidate should not press his ap- 
plication unless he means to accept what is and 
means to maintain and not destroy the polity 
and the doctrines of the church. It is not hon- 
orable for him and it is not safe for the denom- 
ination. 

It would be a good thing if the Annual Con- 
ference would stop reading "must" for "may re- 
ceive certificates," and directly examine the 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 151 



candidates on the whole course of study. Any- 
one who has gone through the schools should 
pass such an examination easily, but it might 
prevent some undesirables from sifting through 
the Conference sieve. The Annual Conference 
should know for itself all these things, and any 
others that might be necessary, and not feel that 
it must take a certificate from a distant profes- 
sor whose marking may be uncertain. Some 
doubtful, men seem to have gotten in and made 
trouble since it became the fashion to take cer- 
tificates in lieu of Conference examinations. 

In the meantime the Annual Conference should 
be preserved as a ministerial body, and for the 
development of the ministry, which, made up 
of men selected by the laity, divinely called, and 
with special functions, makes a class consecrated 
to the ministration of the Word and the Holy 
Sacraments. 

To sustain this dignity and to properly per- 
form this work, every minister owes it to himself, 
to the church, and to the divine head of the 
church, to make the most of himself, in the best 
sense, and to be a well-rounded Methodist Epis- 
copal preacher, knowing and obeying the law, 
and preaching the Gospel as interpreted by his 
church. 

Incidentally, the church should go back to the 
usages that in the former days made the church 
so successful. The old spirit of devotion and 
judicious enthusiasm should be recovered, and, 
among other things still in the law, the Class 
System, with its personal supervision and its 



152 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



helpful Class Meetings, should be re-established 
and made efficient. 

The church should unsecularize itself in every 
way. For example, it should abandon the sec- 
ular title, District Superintendent, and return to 
the clerical title, Presiding Elder. In addition, 
it should give up the area- episcopacy, with its 
more or less restricted conference presidency, 
which is unconstitutional, and without law; and 
return to the practice of the constitutional gen- 
eral superintendency, so that the bishops for the 
whole church can be the board of strategy for 
the general church, and the presiding elders may 
have a fair chance in local guidance. This would 
be a matter of economy, for fewer bishops would 
be needed and much money would be saved, 
while at the same time there would be a true 
general superintendency and greater efficiency. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE GENERAL CONFERENCE 

The General Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church is a great ecclesiastical body 
with most important duties. Meeting once in 
every four years, it looks backward and forward 
in its survey of the work done and to be done, 
and is presumed to act according to the lessons 
of the past and the needs of the future. 

The delegates come in a certain fixed propor- 
tion from the Annual and Lay Electoral Confer- 
ences, the Ministerial and Lay Delegates being 
in equal numbers. 

It is the law-making, and the only law-mak- 
ing body in the Church, and it can initiate or 
conclude action on proposed amendments to the 
Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

It is a powerful body, but it is not supreme. 
It is a representative body but is not more pow- 
erful than the church it represents. The whole 
Church is supreme. The whole Church acting 
legally is more powerful than its creature, the 
General Conference, and under certain circum- 
stances can correct an error of that body. 

The General Conference acts under a Consti- 
tution which was made by the sovereign power 
of the Church. This instrument empowers and 
restricts the General Conference, so that it may 
do some things and is prohibited as to other 
actions. 



(153) 



154 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



The Church in its history has had two kinds 
of General Conferences. Down to and including 
1808 the General Conference was made up of the 
body of the ministry, so to speak, in Annual 
Conference membership, and this body possessed 
and exercised the sovereign power of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, and being sovereign it 
was free to act according to its judgment and 
pleasure, and it was the only General Conference 
that had all power. 

This sovereign General Conference, in 1808, 
created a new kind of General Conference, and, 
instead of the ministers generally coming to- 
gether, as heretofore, the Annual Conferences 
were to elect delegates, and so the new body was 
to be the Delegated General Conference. 

The body of the ministry, however, did not 
part with all its sovereignty, but put into the 
constitution statements as to what the delegated 
General Conference might and might not do, and 
reserved to itself a share of the sovereignty, or 
as some may say, the essential sovereignty. 

The body of the ministry did not, and never 
has surrendered all the sovereign power which it 
possessed at the beginning, as can be seen in its 
reservation of constitutional power, so that no 
change can be made in the constitution without 
the consent or proposal of the ministry in the 
Annual Conferences. So the possession of other 
power over the delegated General Conference has 
been illustrated and demonstrated in the fact 
that subsequent Annual Conferences passed upon 
an action of a General Conference, and, declar- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 155 



ing it unconstitutional, the action fell, and the 
same thing could be done now. The body of the 
ministry being the source of the sovereign power 
it should be respected accordingly. 

A minority representation of laymen was ad- 
mitted into the General Conference in 1872, and 
the laity was admitted in equal numbers in 1900. 

In the course of years the General Conference 
has greatly increased in size notwithstanding the 
changes made at different times in the propor- 
tion, in order to prevent too large a body. The 
first delegated General Conference, which met in 
1812, had only ninety delegates, from eight Con- 
ferences. The historic General Conference, of 
1844, had only one hundred and eighty delegates, 
and the General Conference of 1916, went up to 
eight hundred and thirty-five, from one hundred 
and thirty-three Annual Conferences. Doubt- 
less the next General Conference will be larger. 

The General Conference has become too large 
and its great and growing size is a danger. A 
good presiding officer can direct the public par- 
liamentary work, but the bulky body cannot 
easily handle itself. There is greater difficulty 
in getting recognition from the chair, and, with 
so many wanting to speak, a large proportion is 
prevented from speaking. The size of the body 
and the size of the room also make hearing more 
difficult. Then the overwhelming rush of an 
immense number of persons destroys calmness 
and is apt to result in hasty legislation, and this 
is aggravated by business men, anxious to return 
to their business, who wish to shorten the session. 



156 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



Another result is that a few delegates, with a 
little actual or practical organization, can take 
possession of the Conference, and largely control 
the discussions, the elections, and the general 
business. We make no point of the expense for 
the Church is so large and strong as to easily 
cover the financial demand. 

All together the increased size of the body is 
a disadvantage, and one of the things that should 
be provided for, is the reduction of the size of 
this Conference, which should have been done 
when equal lay representation in the General 
Conference was agreed upon. 

The great committees of the General Confer- 
ence are themselves huge bodies, being made up 
of a ministerial and a lay delegate from each 
Annual Conference. This would give each of the 
main committees a membership of two hundred 
and sixty-six, which is equal to a large Annual 
Conference. The Committee on Episcopacy has 
actually had about that number. 

The committee chooses its own chairman and 
this is considered very important, as the chair- 
man may determine many things by the kind of 
delegates he puts on the subcommittees. For this 
and other reasons it does not seem wise to repeat 
the same chairman from quadrennium to quad- 
rennium. It does not seem well to build up a 
directing class. First, because it does not give 
all a fair chance; and, second, because it tends 
to a concentration and perpetuation of power. 
Indeed, in this way there has been the continua- 
tion of the same policy from General Conference 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 157 



to General Conference, through the repetition of 
the same chairman who repeated the same per- 
sons on the same important subcommittees. A 
dynasty and a free government do not work well 
together. The old democratic doctrine of "Rota- 
tion in office" sometimes is a good thing, and it 
is well to vary the chairmanship of a committee, 
especially as there are other true men who can 
perform the task. 

A General Conference contains many good and 
true delegates who are actuated by a sincere de- 
sire to do the fair and right thing for the Church 
and all concerned. Some are trained men who 
are familiar with the methods of parliamentary 
bodies, but most of them are new and diffident, 
and a considerable proportion of them are inno- 
cent, unsophisticated, and unsuspecting, and that 
gives a relative advantage to the experienced 
delegate and an opportunity to the skilled man- 
ager to swing the Conference according to his 
wish, and his carefully prepared plans. 

Many of the delegates are not only new to the 
rules and ways of a General Conference, but also 
are unfamiliar with the history and law of the 
Church, and, possibly uninformed or misinformed 
as to the doctrines of the Church, which condi- 
tion makes it possible, or probable, that they 
will err in judgment and also in legislation, not 
being able to detect the flaw in the fallacious 
proposition or plea of a plausible innovator. Such 
persons are likely to look around at the other 
eight to nine hundred delegates and complacently 
think or say: "We are the legislators and we are 



158 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



doing the work of the Conference," when, prob- 
ably, a very few are directing the affairs and 
doing the real work. 

There are leaders in all bodies of that nature, 
but all are not of the same kind. Some are lead- 
ers because they think ahead and move ahead. 
Some are leaders because of their ability, and are 
entitled to the appellation because of their 
knowledge, their power as speakers, and their 
skill as parliamentarians, and because they act 
openly on the floor. These are the men who in 
a manly way carry the body by legitimate argu- 
ment in a fair discussion and are entitled to 
respect. 

On the other hand, there are persons who are 
not true leaders, but are managers. Such a man 
may seldom or never speak from the rostrum or 
on the floor, but operates privately or personally, 
and generally is behind the scenes, or in the 
shadow, where the proverbial "ropes" and 
"wires" are presumed to be waiting to be pulled 
or worked. Perhaps not prominent on the floor, 
they seem in some mysterious way to be potent, 
and sometimes more potent than the most power- 
ful orator. In some hidden place where there is 
a suspicion of invisible ropes and insulated and 
secreted wires, such a man seems to have electric 
communication with keymen, while the keyboard 
is worked beyond the view of the innocent and 
unsuspecting delegate. The average delegate now 
and then wonders how things were brought about, 
but he may not know until long after the things 
have been done. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 159 



The way things are done today is very different 
from the ways of former times. Now a man. 
having some position which gives him promi- 
nence, it may be merely through reputed wealth, 
or something else that secures him recognition 
and influence in private, or public, or both, con- 
ceives something he desires to bring to pass, it 
may be something striking and far-reaching. He 
perceives that if he can dominate those who can 
give it standing, he can accomplish his purpose. 
He consults with one or two of his own kind, and 
they agree. Then he gives it out, and puts it 
on, with an air that takes it for granted that all 
will support it, and his very assurance insures 
obedience and the requisite votes. 

Recent history shows there have been success- 
ful manipulators of this sort, who knew how to 
"pull the ropes," and to utilize the unseen wires, 
and it is said that some persons have sought their 
influence to promote the personal ambitions of 
the solicitous and soliciting individuals. 

The business of the General Conference, in 
these latter days, is usually done in a rush, on 
the principle of the "drive," so that there is not 
sufficient time for reflection, and the average 
member is hardly able to fully understand the 
import and bearing of the many propositions, 
which, with great speed, are being rushed through 
the enacting mill. 

Sometimes committee after committee strug- 
gles to get a report through, when under the pres- 
sure sufficient time is not secured for a fair and 
full presentation, and, not infrequently, reports 



160 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



are adopted without discussion and without read- 
ing, which is a most dangerous thing to do. 

This rushing method can sometimes be used to 
put through what a deliberate deliberative body 
never would pass, and there can be no doubt that 
errors have been perpetrated, and even great per- 
sonal wrongs have been done in this way. 

Now and then, however, when a subject has 
been before the Conference two or three times, 
perhaps with modifications, the body begins to 
see through the project, and, rising to the occa- 
sion, administers an overwhelming rebuke to the 
parties who are trying to work through a par- 
ticular design, thus showing that the delegates 
generally want to do the right thing when they 
fully comprehend it. 

In recent General Conferences, under the hasty 
rush methods, the delegates have perpetrated 
wrongs, and ten minutes after they had taken 
action, when the error dawned on them, the body 
could not have been induced to do the things at 
all. What it had done was in haste and through 
a misunderstanding because trie matters had not 
been fully presented. Then, as the whirl went 
on, they did not see how to reverse their action. 

If the General Conference would follow the 
methods of certain other parliamentary bodies 
and have first, second, and third readings before 
final action, and also consideration in the com- 
mittee of the whole house, the members would 
have a better understanding of matters before 
they came to a final vote, and possible mistakes, 
or actual injustices would be prevented. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 161 



The older General Conferences made frequent 
use of the Committee of the Whole, and, on the 
simple motion to go into the committee of the 
whole, and this course could be followed at the 
present time.* 

Some say that politics has crept into the mod- 
ern General Conference. We are not prepared to 
affirm that it has crept in. If rumor is correct 
it would seem that instead of creeping in. politics 
has openly and boldly stalked in. and displayed 
itself with little, if any. disguise. 

Some of the delegates have had experience in 
political conventions, and it is more than possi- 
ble that the habits and ways of such worldly 
bodies may have unconsciously, or consciously, 
clung to them, after they came into the religious 
conference. 

That the ways of the politician have been used 
in the General Conference, has been boldly as- 
serted, and the operators have openly admitted 
it without a blush and without any defense. 
They admit it with a smile and an air of satis- 
faction, as though it were something to be proud 
of, while the secular politicians on the outside 
say the Conference "could give them points.'' I> 
it true that to this low point the great General 
Conference has fallen? 

The innocent delegate is surprised to hear the 
repeated remark: "They say." "They are going 
to do thus and so," and he wonders who are 

*See "'Xeely's Parliamentary Practice/' by Bishop 
Thomas B. Neelv, New York: The Abingdon Pre.?-, 
second edition, page 231 — Methodist Book Concern, 
11 



162 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



"they." He knows nothing about it, but, later, 
it dawns on him that it meant a little group, of 
a few self-appointed individuals, that had as- 
sumed the management of the General Confer- 
ence in its principal doings. "They" said a cer- 
tain thing would be done, and, lo! it was done. 
"They" said such and such a thing must not be 
done, and, lo! it was so. The mysterious "they" 
were mighty. 

In the great committee, the new delegate was 
impressed by the practical unanimity in the elec- 
tion of the chairman. The brother's name had 
previously been mentioned to him as the man 
who would be elected. Still he was impressed, 
but he did not know that just before the Gen- 
eral Conference met, hundreds of telegrams had 
been sent to the delegates to commit them to the 
election of the very brother he saw chosen. So 
it was not so spontaneous as he had thought. If 
he had known the facts he might have wonder- 
ed why so much money was spent on telegrams. 
Possibly he would have observed that the tele- 
grams went quickly at the right moment, and did 
not allow much time to intervene. Later, he 
might have learned the chairman was one the 
manager could trust. 

Neither did the innocent delegate know that 
what was done was understood to be a part of 
a movement with the object or purpose of hav- 
ing a particular program, including other mat- 
ters, carried out in the General Conference. If 
he ever learned that he must have wondered how 
many other things like that had been done. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 163 

He may have noticed other things that at first 
sight seemed spontaneous, but later he had a 
suspicion that they were deliberately planned in 
advance. So he concludes there were prior under- 
standings and prearrangements. 

It is surprising how a huge body like the Gen- 
eral Conference can be controlled by a few per- 
sons, and even by one man. 

In one General Conference, it is said, that if 
anybody wanted an office he should see a certain 
person, and that ambitious individuals did court 
him because it was understood that he controlled, 
or could influence a certain block of votes. That 
was the rumor. 

Before one Conference had actually convened, 
it is said that among arriving delegates the in- 
formation was started and spread that , 

having conferred with one or two, or three per- 
sons, had decided that certain official changes 
should take place, and it was added that he was 
the man who decided such things. It happened 
in this particular instance the things were done 
as preannounced. 

In a certain General Conference, it was stated 
that very vital things were done by the influence 
of one, or two, or three, and that, if the three had 
not done as they did, the General Conference 
would not have voted as it did in one particular 
instance. 

If such things are true, it is unfortunate for 
the Church, and some way should be found to 
defend the delegates from such personal influ- 
ences. 



164 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



That there is some, or too much, truth in such 
floating statements, is very generally believed. 
Having passed through the chief elections for 
high offices, the new delegate is very apt to get 
the impression that the methods of the political 
convention have slipped in, that the voting is 
not always according to merit, and that some are 
not praying to, and trusting in, God, but rather 
are putting their trust in the workings of the 
practical politician. At least he thinks he per- 
ceives movements that suggest the political agent 
and his instructed assistants, and he is not 
greatly surprised if some one tells him that the 
election does not go on merit, but according to 
the skill of the manager. 

This he thinks is possibly the case when he 
notices that certain workers can tell how the vote 
is going, and whether the vote for one person will 
go up or down, as one said, "On the next ballot 
so-and-so's vote will drop forty votes," and, when 
the next ballot was reported, the vote of the party 
indicated had fallen forty. How did the worker 
know before the ballots had been cast? Did 
some one control that number of votes, and how 
did it happen that they all dropped out or shifted 
at the same moment? Such things cause the 
young delegate to reflect, and his wonder grows. 

If the young delegate were to hear that one or 
more had a sort of headquarters, a room where 
interested parties could come during the cam- 
paign to talk things over, he might begin to 
imagine that his surmises were about to solidify 
into a fixed opinion. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 165 



If, prior to the elections, he hears of dinner 
parties given by one person to conveniently small 
sections of delegates generally, and also a larger 
section in a special case, and that at such a din- 
ner was one, as a guest of honor, of whom it 
was whispered that he was being thought of for 
a high office, the crystallization of his suspicion 
would be greatly accelerated. 

So when he is informed how a General Con- 
ference had been managed by one man, or by 
two or three men, he is likely to conclude that in 
such management there must have been some 
science and system very like what the worlding 
commonly calls politics. 

Then he may reason that, if political methods 
are being used, there must be at least one poli- 
tician somewhere about. 

Again, if he overhears a few men say: We 
cannot elect our three friends to the episcopacy 
unless we create a vacancy by retiring another 
bishop, then he thinks he has discovered a prin- 
ciple in these movements. 

As time goes on he concludes that great organi- 
zations indirectly or directly take part in bring- 
ing about elections to high office, and even to 
the bishopric, and he is informed that even an 
outside organization has been influential in mak- 
ing bishops. 

That quickens his suspicions and his percep- 
tions, and he thinks that he has found that 
potent interests, aided by a potential corps of 
supporters, are present and actively at work in 
the interest of men and measures who are thought 



166 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



to be favorable to these interests and their poli- 
cies. Some he thinks are delegates on the floor, 
while other aids he thinks are observers in the 
gallery and active workers in the lobby, which 
in other days he did not know was a part of 
a General Conference. Further observation con- 
vinces him that the great interests have a pro- 
gram to present and put through, which means 
electing men for office and securing the adoption 
of measures to aid the interests in some way. 
So he gradually learns to pick out individuals, 
who seem to be leaders, and appear to have their 
retinue, and retainers are spoken of as lieuten- 
ants. 

Thus he perceives that there is a complexity 
of forces in action quite calculated to perplex a 
novice in a deliberative body. 

To his amazement he discovers that the per- 
petration of an injustice is possible even in a 
General Conference of good men, and notwith- 
standing the body means well. Such things suc- 
ceed because of a lack of knowledge on the part 
of the delegates generally in the things of the 
Church. That lack of knowledge gives the indi- 
vidual, who wants the thing his chance, as the 
new delegates get the idea that that is the way 
those things always have been done in the Gen- 
eral Conference. They think the two or three 
experienced leaders who support each other 
know, and that it is their duty to follow. 

Thus under this leadership in a large commit- 
tee they find themselves pledged to secrecy, and 
that in the secret sessions a man is discussed, 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 167 



but the party involved is not permitted to be 
present during the proceedings to hear what is 
said about him and then to make answer, and 
the parties thus pledged to secrecy are not per- 
mitted to tell him or let him know what trans- 
pired, and without informing him as to what 
was said, an action was taken. That was a tres- 
pass on natural, and universally recognized legal 
rights. The wicked world would say it was 
horrible, and the courts of the land would not 
have tolerated it, and yet, with good men, who 
were misled or did not know what should be done, 
such procedure, according to common report, 
was an actual fact. 

So a General Conference, it would seem, is not 
as safe as in former years, when a greater pro- 
portion knew the laws of the Church and the 
rights of individuals in the Church. Every 
man's rights should be protected in matters 
great or small, in the Church as well as in the 
State, and more particularly in the Church be- 
cause of the higher principles by which it is 
actuated. All this, however, may be imperilled 
if people are not well informed as to those rights, 
and as to the history and law of the Church. It 
is only then that they are at the mercy of those 
who profess to know and are carrying out a plan. 

The General Conference is not the Church, and 
the Church may regret something the General 
Conference does, but this Conference represents 
the Church, and the Church suffers, and must 
pay the penalty for any wrong the General Con- 
ference does, though the Church may have been 



168 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



entirely innocent and disapproving the act. This 
is another case where one suffers for the misdeeds 
of another. 

It is important that all errors of procedure, 
and errors of all sorts, shall be avoided. 

It is not safe to assume that every man who 
poses as a leader is a safe man to follow, and 
every delegate, even the humblest, should think 
for himself, and test every statement that is 
made. The glib speaker may not know as much 
as his stream of words might seem to imply. A 
fluent speaker may not be a sound reasoner, and 
a flippant speaker is not worthy of respect. 

Both men and measures must be watched. 
Dangerous propositions may be presented, and 
nothing should go to vote, unless an important 
routine motion, without question, challenge, and 
discussion. 

In this age particularly intense men are apt to 
say or propose that which is dangerous and 
likely to result in disaster. Hence nothing should 
be taken for granted. Men are thinking radical 
things and often without knowing their bearings 
or caring for the consequences. The new thing- 
might injure the system, or ruin the mechanism, 
but this makes no difference to the man who 
flatters himself that he is a radical reformer, and 
is proud of his revolutionary notions. 

Bolshevism is not confined to Russia. The 
Bolshevistic spirit is in all lands and takes on 
many different forms. As it is in the State it is 
likely to make its way into the Church, and the 
more probable is this, in view of what may be 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 169 



termed official information that "Bolshevists, 
Socialists, and anarchists are receiving teachers' 
certificates and are teaching in every State in 
the Union with a view to undermining the gov- 
ernment of the United States," and that persons 
are not only teaching such subversive views in 
the public schools, but also in the colleges and 
universities and other institutions of learning 
throughout the country. 

Indeed, it has been publicly asserted, and in 
print, that various forms of socialism that have 
"nothing to do with social reform," but "would 
overturn all our institutions, our government, 
our ideals" have found their way into different 
denominations under the guise of that which 
some may call social service, and, if this be so, 
the Methodist Episcopal Church must be on its 
guard. 

It does not require an especially astute observer 
to notice how deliverances in recent General 
Conferences on social questions have grown and 
strengthened. In 1912 there was a section of the 
appendix to the Book of Discipline, which cov- 
ered less than two pages, and was entitled "fl564. 
The Church and Social Problems." In 1916 this 
had grown to nearly four pages, about double 
that of 1912, with very pronounced economic 
theories, and the title was changed to a "Creed" 
— "tf586. Social Creed of the Churches." 

Thus the General Conference had been induced 
to make a new "creed" for the Church or the 
churches, so that the Methodist Episcopal 
Church may now be said to have two creeds, 



170 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



"The Apostles' Creed," and the "Social Creed/' 
which seems sacrilegious. It should be remem- 
bered, however, that it is unconstitutional for a 
General Conference to make a creed for the 
Church. If it was not intended to make a creed 
then it should not have been given that title. 
Further, it is to be observed, that it is not a 
part of the Book of Discipline, but is printed in 
the appendix thereto. This gives it a lower 
status, but it indicates a trend that needs to be 
carefully watched, for it is true even in the 
Church that "Eternal vigilance is the price of 
liberty." 

One of our church editors has written of "radi- 
cals" "whose voices have been the occasion of 
some uneasiness in more than one denomination," 
and has said pretty plainly that such voices are 
being heard in our own denomination. That 
being the case, and, particularly, because of prev- 
alent revolutiona^ tendencies, the Church in 
these matters must defend itself against even 
"the very appearance of evil," and, when not 
certain, to give the Church the benefit of the 
doubt. 

This is all the more necessary because the 
Bolshevist, and also the extreme Socialist, is as 
plausible as a Jesuit and may make the worse 
seem the better reason, and with specious state- 
ments may seem to explain away objections and 
difficulties that may be pointed out, and so de- 
ceive unsuspecting saints. 

No new thing of a questionable character 
should be admitted, and the Church should keep 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



171 



within its own sphere, and not be blinded and 
deluded into the adoption of things which are 
outside that sphere, no matter by whom they 
may be presented. Plainly it is not the function 
of the Church to adopt business theories on which 
business men have disagreed, and it is not the 
duty of the Church to settle economic principles 
which must change with changing circumstances, 
any more than it is its duty to determine ques- 
tions of science on which the scientific world 
does not agree. 

Many propositions may be brought forward 
at a General Conference, even with the backing 
of influential personages, that should be severely 
scanned and overwhelmingly defeated. It is not 
the person who presents it that is being passed 
upon, but the proposition itself, and, regardless 
of the individual who fathers the measure, it 
should be decided entirely on its own merits. 
The delegate, therefore, should be on his guard 
lest he be swept away by the eloquence or the 
assurance of the mover of the measure, by ap- 
peals to sympathy or prejudice, or by an air of 
extreme sanctity that carries with it a special 
intimacy with the Most High and the possession 
of a revelation directly from God himself on the 
pending matter. For this, however, there is no 
proof but the word and manner of the individual 
himself, and all such appeals should be instantly 
discounted, though they may be attributed to 
enthusiasm or something else. It is dangerous 
to pass anything under such a spell, and the dele- 
gate should use his hard common sense. 



172 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



One of the things mooted at the present time, 
according to common report, is a combination of 
all the benevolent societies or boards in the 
Church, under one management or head. 

This ought to be scrutinized with suspicion. 
The Church has had experience, and should 
remember that, in the past, meddling with the 
benevolent organizations in such a way, has 
proved most unfortunate. 

The General Conference of 1904 passed an act 
to combine the benevolent boards, and the order 
was carried out, but, it proved so unworkable 
and disastrous, that the very next General Con- 
ference was glad to separate them, but, in the 
confusion, the Tract Board was forgotten and 
perished, and ever since the denomination has 
been without the aid it could give in the work of 
the Church. 

Such a combination of the benevolent societies, 
as is suggested is injudicious, unphilosophical, 
and unscientific. Benevolent societies with dis- 
tinct benevolent objects are like plants of differ- 
ent species, and cannot be forced together in an 
unnatural combination or relationship. 

Each society has its own peculiar appeal, and 
each cause by itself is enough to demand the 
supreme attention of the separate management, 
and, if it does not get it, it is not likely to flourish. 

If the purpose, as seems to be the case, is to 
have a combination of finances, then it is unscien- 
tific, for each cause needs to be fairly presented 
on its own merits, and those who have specialized 
in that particular line of benevolence are needed 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 173 



to gather and disburse the funds specially and 
intelligently contributed by those who are moved 
to aid it. because of what it is in itself, and the 
individual giver is entitled to hear a presentation 
of that particular cause. 

Then, such a combination of funds not only 
raises difficulties in distribution, but the massing 
of funds under one, or a few, tends to build up 
a money imperialism or oligarchy which is full 
of danger, and is likely to develop a church-wide 
government, as has just been demonstrated, that 
may control the Church politically as well as 
otherwise, and we have also had actual illustra- 
tions proving that it does not make for economy, 
for the tendency is toward an immense increase 
in the niunber of assistants and workers and an 
immense increase in the expenses of administra- 
tion. 

There is a real danger in large funds. There 
is, of course, the danger of mistakes, the confu- 
sion of accounts, and the possibility of defalca- 
tion, and scandal, but. beyond all these things, 
there are positive dangers of another class. 

With the growth of immense funds, vested or 
otherwise, there is a tendency to concentration 
in management, until the real power over the 
money is concentrated in a very few persons, and 
in one person, and. though there might be a Board 
of Managers, the average member would have 
little to say. and practically know little or noth- 
ing about the actual policy, and. practically, 
nothing about the details, and by that time the 
board itself would have come under the spell of 



174 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



a wizard of finance, and the practical effect of 
that would be to build up a practically despotic 
power under the dominating personality, or pos- 
sibly of a closely identified few, and the domi- 
nating individual would have a far-reaching 
grasp and an iron grip. 

The possession of large, or practically unlim- 
ited funds, quite naturally tends to extravagance 
rather than economy in expenditures. With a 
superabundance of money there is a temptation 
to recklessness in estimates, as well as in expendi- 
tures, which may lead to ventures that might not 
turn out as had been hoped, but might prove to 
be disastrous failures, so that, with a sudden 
change in circumstances, obligations or antici- 
pations could not be met and the Church would 
find itself involved in most serious difficulties. 

Again, when large sums are handled, or ex- 
pected to be in hand, there is a temptation to 
resort to expensive methods to produce striking 
results, and, in this there may be a power to 
produce a controlling force which would be coer- 
cive and not the spontaneous expression of the 
free mind. 

It is wiser to pursue a course of progressive 
conservatism, and the managers of Church benev- 
olences should employ the simplest methods, as 
far as possible confining themselves to receipts 
and disbursements, avoiding obligations that are 
contingent on uncertain contributions, assuming 
no risks, and never playing the part of the specu- 
lative stock broker whose narrow margin may 
speedily be swept away. 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 175 



There is another possibility that should be 
considered most seriously, and considered now, 
because dangers often do not reveal themselves 
long before the disaster. The free use of large 
amounts of money has given the power to call 
hundreds of leading men of the Church together 
at any time from all parts of the country, and 
because of the abundance of money to pay their 
travelling expenses and the cost of their enter- 
tainment. This may become a dangerous ad- 
vantage, as it makes those who are thus brought 
together the guests of those who invited them, 
and subjects them to the influence of the host, 
and unintentionally and, perhaps, unconsciously, 
they may be biased and easily swayed by their 
generous entertainer, though he may not be 
spending his own money. 

This plainly is possible and may sometimes be 
the fact. Then when the parties come together 
they may not have a chance to study matters 
independently, but may find the time taken up 
by prearranged addresses of great length in the 
interest of one side, and a programme which the 
guests are seemingly expected to kindly accept 
from the host. 

In passing some one may ask what law gives 
a board, or the officers of a board the right to 
thus bring together individuals from far and 
near, and, especially to bring together from all 
parts of the country, the District Superinten- 
dents, the appointees, the associates, and the 
assistants of the bishops in episcopal work, and 
whose official responsibility is to the bishops. 



176 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



And what right has a board or an officer of a 
board to submit to such an extra judicial gath- 
ering matters that the law commits to the board 
and its officers? If it were not for the dignity 
of those who meet in response to the invitation, 
it might be said to be a relapse into mass gov- 
ernment, and there are suspicions that these 
irregular gatherings have had a coercive influence 
over the legal authorities and even the board 
itself. The Church should scrutinize all such 
movements, and, by all proper checks, defend 
itself from what may be a growing danger. 

Then the concentrated authority, controlling, 
directly or indirectly, the immense funds, would 
tend to build up a great imperialism, under the 
form of an autocracy, an oligarchy, or a bureauc- 
racy, according to the number in control, that 
might, and, probably would, practically or di- 
rectly rule the Church, even up to and into the 
General Conference itself. 

Thus with large sums of money to gather and 
disburse, this central power, on the professed 
needs of the work, which an acute mind could 
easily devise and set forth, could easily secure 
the services and attachment of a small army of 
workers, representing all sections of the country, 
and these aids would become active supporters 
of the central power and its policies, and might 
even give a personal allegiance beyond the de- 
mands of the official routine. 

Naturally a large proportion of these helpers 
would be taken from among the pastors, who, 
with their ministerial standing, would have many 
opportunities to speak from the pulpits of the 



PRESENT PEB1LS OF METHODISM. 177 



denomination, and to come in contact with influ- 
ential individuals, and thus help the cause, gen- 
eral and personal, or both. 

Of course the judicious selecting and scattering 
of these devoted assistants, indebted to the cen- 
tralized authority for place and so for support, 
would strengthen the influence of the central 
power, and some day in the future might be used 
for a widespread propaganda, and become a 
potent political agency, and as a percentage 
might be elected delegates to the General Con- 
ference, they might be useful in that body in 
making such laws, and electing such officers as 
might be desired, and in sympathy with the 
policies worked, thus strengthening the growing- 
oligarchy. 

These are dangers that should be guarded 
against, not in the distant future but now. and 
not with only one board in view, but all boards 
and all individuals who control and are sustained 
by the benevolent funds of the denomination. 
Today the executive officers of boards have hun- 
dreds who are dependent upon, and working for 
them, as compared with the little handful that 
did the work only a few years ago. and very 
many of them are pastors in this detached work, 
thus depleting the pastorate and weakening the 
local churches. At the same time there are 
whisperings as to what some of them will bring 
about in the General Conference. If there is 
anything in that the non-political delegate will 
have justification for taking notice and govern- 
ing himself accordingly. 
12 



178 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



There has been criticism on outside parties and 
organizations, with agents all over the country, 
because an organization and its workers were 
said to have planned and carried through the 
election of high officers of the Church by pre- 
liminary work, or by direct efforts in the General 
Conference. However that may have been, and 
we make no assertion, it will not make things 
any better, to have little armies of agents paid 
out of church funds, covering all the Conferences, 
and, it may be, on their own initiative, determin- 
ing who shall be bishops, secretaries, editors, 
agents or other officers. 

Another thing has been suggested, and it has 
been noticed that nearly all, or all, of the inno- 
vations, are the suggestions of a little set of 
interested persons, who generally want to make 
a big, easy, and well-paid place, and want to get 
into it, and their willingness to be sacrificed is 
not equal to their willingness to sacrifice the 
Church. 

This new suggestion is the creation of an 
executive committee to direct the Church in 
the interim of the General Conferences. How 
delightful this would be! That is, how delight- 
ful it would be for those on the committee. 
How they would make everybody else stand 
around ! It may seem a pleasant and very desir- 
able thing for those on the committee who 
would like to boss the bishops and the whole 
Church, when the General Conference is not in 
session, but it would not be very agreeable to 
those who were being bossed. The quadrennial 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 179 



Archbishops on the committee would at once, or 
sooner or later expect a generous provision for 
their own expenses, and for their secretaries and 
other assistants, for they could not administer 
the affairs of the Church without a large retinue. 
Each individual doubtless would need an office, 
and it may transpire there should be erected at 
some central place a costly and capacious Arch- 
episcopal Palace, and each individual in the 
proposed body might wear a suitable garb to 
distinguish him from mere bishops and others. 

Perhaps such a scheme might find a place in 
a denomination with a different polity, but it 
would not have any proper place in the Meth- 
odist Episcopal system. 

In the Methodist Episcopal Church a sufficient 
provision exists and has always existed. In it 
the bishops who are "General Superintendents," 
are, by the Constitution of the Church, the per- 
manent executive committee, and they are to 
superintend the work of the Church. 

In this age when men boast about democracy, 
we have seen a great autocracy built up, and, in 
view of various movements in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, we wonder whether these 
movements are efforts to construct within the 
Church a new kind of autocracy or bureaucracy, 
or whether, considering a little group of agita- 
tors, it means an ecclesiastical oligarchy. The 
Church should find out immediately, and at once 
take the necessary steps to protect itself and its 
institutions. 

If the Church wants to economize in its board 



180 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



organizations, it might turn its attention to what 
is termed the Commission of Finance, though 
very few know what it is for, or what it does. 
Indeed, when it was adopted by the General 
Conference the action was taken in the dark, for 
the report was not debated, and it was not read. 
The commission is said to spend forty thousand 
dollars a year, and the money is taken out of 
the funds of the various boards, but, why it 
spends so much money and what good the Church 
gets from it, hardly anybody seems to know. 
One thing the Church ought to know is that this 
commission is composed largely of the secretaries 
of the benevolent boards, who are there to get 
out of it all the money they can for their respec- 
tive boards, for the commission determines what 
their askings are to be. In other words, inter- 
ested parties vote for themselves what they want. 
Many think the Commission on Finance should 
be put out of existence, but it is certain that, if 
it is continued, only disinterested persons should 
be in its membership. 

A General Conference delegate has a task 
which will demand all his time, all his mind, and 
all his conscience, while the Conference is in 
session, and for it he should give all possible 
study prior to its meeting. 

He must study the men who are proposed for 
office. He will find that unsuitable men are pre- 
sented by good brethren through personal friend- 
ship or misinformation. The politician may come 
in, and he is worth watching, but the delegate 
should abandon the notion that all men who are 



PRESENT PEBILS OF METHODISM. 181 



elected are elected through political methods. 
He has a right himself to sustain, and in a proper 
way to speak for. men he has studied with care 
and has become convinced are the right men for 
the positions, but he should be sure he is right 
before he goes ahead, and. with him, voting 
should be a religious act to benefit the Church 
and honor God. 

The delegate should be on his guard against 
all attempts to stampede the Conference. To 
stampede a large body is not a difficult thing for 
those who know how. and. with the sympathetic 
atmosphere of a religious assembly, it is. per- 
haps, easier there than in some other gatherings, 
for the religious attitude disarms suspicion. 
Some men. who know how. know this and take 
advantage of it. possibly by a strong appeal, a 
shout that thrills, or the clapping of hands. This 
is calculated to destroy calmness and produce 
excitement, and. so. throw the body off its mental 
balance, and give an opportunity to rush a meas- 
ure through without sufficient examination. One 
scene like that will come to the memory of dele- 
gates in a former General Conference. At the 
moment it swept the house, but some do not 
recall it with pleasure. In a time like that the 
sane delegate must put the brakes on his nerves 
and his volitions. He is in a deliberative body 
and he must be deliberate. 



CHAPTER VII 



FINALLY 

Every living thing in this world is in danger. 
Hence every living thing must be watched over, 
must be defended, must be given right conditions, 
and must have the aid of right forces, or it will 
die. 

The same is true in regard to the organized 
Church, and, especially, today, as to the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. Great as it is, and 
strong as it has been, it is being undermined. 
Right conditions are being taken away from it 
and wrong conditions have been created. The 
things that make for life and vigor are being 
weakened, withdrawn, or destroyed. Some are 
ruining its doctrines ; some are sapping its polity ; 
some are neutralizing the truth and imposing the 
false, and the destructive process still goes on. 

There is imminent danger to the Church with- 
out law or doctrine, without conformity to law 
or doctrine, or with weakened or distorted law 
and doctrine. 

The facts which have been cited, and others 
omitted because of limited space, show that the 
denomination in various respects is being torn 
from its roots in history, in polity, and in doc- 
trine. 

A tree grows from its roots upward into sight, 
and so does an ecclesiastical organism. Cut 

(182) 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



183 



away the roots, or tear the tree up from its roots, 
and hang it in the air, and there can be only- 
one result. It will perish. The leaves may re- 
main green a little while, and a sickly shoot may 
appear, but, sooner or later, the uprooted or dis- 
rooted tree will surely die. That is the one cer- 
tain thing before it, and that is the inevitable 
consequence when the roots of a Church are torn 
up, or cut away, or destroyed. 

That is the situation. There are attacks on 
doctrines and on the organism itself. They have 
been the insidious work of the sapper in the 
shadow, but now the sappers have boldly and 
haughtily come out in the open, and with con- 
temptuous scorn, they make no secret of their 
destructive purpose, and one of the most dis- 
couraging facts is the widespread indifference 
among the ministry and the laity, as to existing 
conditions, and as to what may be done, as well 
as what is being done by those who are not true 
to the ideals of the Church, and to the obligations 
which they have voluntarily taken. 

This should no longer be the case. There 
must be a realization of the peril of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church. The indifference should 
be thrown aside, and there should be an arouse- 
ment of the real Church that will paralyze the 
uplifted arm which is making ready to strike 
other blows at the Church in its beliefs and its 
vital organism. 

The mass of the people in the Church do not 
wish the impending results which are working 
outward, but love their Church organization and 



184 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



the truth for which it stands, and wish the per- 
petuation of the essentials, and investigation 
will show that only a very few individuals are 
directly working the mischief. 

Those who carefully study the recent move- 
ments within the Church can detect without diffi- 
culty the few who are leading in these destructive 
efforts, for they have made themselves conspicu- 
ous and are so associated in various matters that 
where one is found the others are likely to be. 

They are few in number but they have accom- 
plished much, too much, by their formal or in- 
formal combination and aggressiveness, which 
are strengthened by their assumption, and, nega- 
tively, by the fact that the Church has been too 
passive. 

They are only a few, but unchecked, they have 
thought they could do and say what they liked. 
They are directly responsible for many evil 
influences and injurious results, but the rest of 
the ministers and members who let them do these 
destructive things are themselves responsible, 
and these others forming the real Church, must 
rise and call a halt. 

It should be observed that many of the evil 
conditions are created not all at once but gradu- 
ally by making one little change after another, 
so that almost imperceptibly the Church is trans- 
formed, which shows the importance of constant 
watchfulness. 

With such changes going on little by little it 
is possible for the Church some day to awake to 
the fact that a great and evil transformation has 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



1S5 



taken place, and. though individuals are left, 
most important matters have disappeared and 
may be utterly lost. 

These allusions may be sufficient to show how 
vital changes may go on in an eeelesiasticism. 
and, perhaps, unconsciously to the mass of mem- 
bers, and how such changes may go on until little 
of the Church is left, or nothing is left excepting 
the external machinery and the name, and one 
may imagine how these things may still go on 
until both the external mechanism and the old 
name disappear. 

In this way the Methodist Episcopal Church 
may lose that which was its vitality, and a phys- 
ical form remain after its real churchly life has 
gone. So when the spirit takes its flight we have 
a corpse. In other words. Methodism can de- 
part, and an organization remain, but it would 
not be the old Methodist Episcopal Church. That 
is the danger point. Against that we must guard. 

Fortunately the conditions are not quite so 
bad as that. The Church has not yet cut away 
from all its vital and vitalizing roots. Some are 
not yet cut through. Some roots still are left. 
But the cutting is going on. 

Now the thing to do is to stop cutting or tear- 
ing away the roots, by stopping those who are 
doing the cutting and tearing, and by preventing 
it in the future, for the Church must preserve a 
vital connection with the past and with its vital 
beginnings. If these things go on a little longer, 
the real Methodist Episcopal Church will die, 
though an organization, bearing its name, may 
continue to exist. 



186 PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 



However, the Church need not die. If the 
good and true in the Church will only do their 
duty, do it at once, do it vigorously, and do it 
continuously, the Church will throw off the evil 
forces and deadly influences, and live a vigorous 
and wholesome life. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church must be 
saved, restored, and reinvigorated. It must be 
saved from evil forces within, as well as from 
destructive forces without. 

The essential elements that have been weak- 
ened must be restored to their normal strength. 
There must be a reinvigoration of essential 
spiritual power in the individual, and in the mass, 
and by the Church invoking and receiving a 
greater baptism of divine power. 

The great Methodist Episcopal Church, with 
its background of marvellous achievement, and 
its myriad capabilities and possibilities, must 
not be permitted to fail, or come short of reason- 
able expectations as a real Church of Christ and 
such as Wesley planned. 

It must not become a mere machine for a few 
self-appointed engineers to run; it must not 
degenerate into a mere mass of well-meaning 
people swayed by momentary impulses, or 
swayed by religious-appearing demagogues; it 
must not become a devout mass without knowl- 
edge of its own doctrines, or polity, or history; 
and it must not be allowed to become chiefly a 
money-getting and money-disbursing mechanism, 
as though that were the great work of the Church. 

It must be an intelligent Church with knowl- 



PRESENT PERILS OF METHODISM. 187 



edge of itself; conforming to its law in a legal 
way, and demanding legality and loyalty from 
all; and honoring God and his truth at all 
times and in everything. 

The visible and the material must not be more 
conspicuous than the spiritual, and even the in- 
tellectual should not be more dominant than the 
religious. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church must not be 
permitted to be a Church without a genuine and 
complete Christian faith, with a ministry with- 
out a definite denominational creed, or with a 
membership lacking a personal religious experi- 
ence. 

It must be a Church with both faith and works, 
and with faith first; and a Church that does not 
harbor or reward, by promotion or otherwise, 
those whose teachings and actions tend to destroy 
the true faith and injure the essential organism 
of the Church. Present perils must be promptly 
met and the Church must be on the alert and 
prepared to resist all dangers as they may arise 
in the future. 

To defend the Church is the duty of all. 



THE END. 



SOME OTHER BOOKS 
BY 

BISHOP THOMAS BENJAMIN NEELY 



PUBLISHED BY THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN, 
New York, Cincinnati, etc. 

Neely*s Parlimextary Practice. 16mo, pp. 231, 60 cents 
and $1.00. 

The Bishops axd the Supervisioxal System in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 8vo, pp. 350. 

A study of the supervisional system and all about the 
episcopacy. A book for the present time. 

The Goverxtxg Coxferexce in Methodism. 8vo, pp. 452. 

"A brilliant monograph," on the origin and develop- 
ment of the Conference. 



BY THE FLEMING H. REYELL COMPANY, 
New York, Chicago, Toronto, London, Edinburgh. 

Doctrixal Standards of Methodism, including the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Churches. Svo, pp. 355, $2.00 net. 

"As a reliable treatise and as an authoritative work 
of reference of permanent value." "The thoroughness 
and reliability of the Work is beyond all question." 

American Methodism, its Divisions axd Unifications. 
8vo, pp. 407, $1.50. 

A history of the divisions in American Methodism, 
and of attempts at unification. "No man can possess 
a thorough knowledge of the subject if he has not read 
Bishop Neely's book." Any one who discusses unifica- 
tion needs this book. A "valuable and providential book." 

The Minister in the Itixeraxt System. 12mo, pp. 206. 
$1.00. 

A practical and philosophical presentation of the itiner- 
ant and appointive ministerial system. "The ablest 
survey." "Fully meets a long felt need." "The book 
easily entitles Bishop Neely to the commading title of 
premier statesman of Methodism in this generation." 



BY E. A. YEAKEL, Agent, Philadelphia. 

The League of Nation's Daxger. 8vo, pp. 238. cloth 
$1.50, paper 75 cents. 

A study of the so-called "League of Nations." 
Presext Perils of Methodism. 12mo, pp. 187. 
The Revised Ritual of 1916. 



All on sale by E. A. Yeakel, Agent, Methodist Episcopal 
Book Store, 1705 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 



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